


Adrinette April 2020

by trashcatontherooftop



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette April, Aspik - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Multimouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 51,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23425513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcatontherooftop/pseuds/trashcatontherooftop
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 455
Kudos: 330
Collections: Adrinette April 2020





	1. Day 1: Pranks

Adrien was not okay, and Tikki was worried. His father had cancelled his sleepover with Nino so he could squeeze in two extra photoshoots this weekend, there were so many akumas this week that he barely managed to get his side of the group project done and Chloe had yelled at him for "not pulling his weight," and because of that he hadn't gotten a chance to practise the piano even though he had a recital that evening.

And to top it all off, his phone wasn't working any more.

"S'up, dude?" asked Nino, looking concerned. Adrien let out a frustrated growl and slid his phone across the table to Nino.

"The touch screen's just stopped working. I don't know what's wrong with it, but my dad is not going to be happy if I have to change it."

"Why not? He can afford it."

"You know what he's like," Adrien grumbled. "Any excuse to be mad at me, he'll take it."

Nino patted his best friend's shoulder, then turned to poke at the phone. After a few seconds he let out a surprised laugh.

"Somebody pranked you, bro!"

Adrien leaned over. "What?"

Nino tapped the bottom of the screen, and Adrien's home screen – or what he'd thought was his home screen – minimized to an image. Adrien's eyes widened.

"But – how?!" he spluttered.

Giggles sounded behind him, and he turned to eye the girls suspiciously.

"April fools!" Marinette grinned, eyes twinkling with mischief. Adrien's jaw went slack, and the girls laughed harder.

"You -!" He pointed an accusing finger at them both, then rounded on Marinette. "You did this," he accused, eyes narrowed. Marinette stopped laughing just long enough to raise her eyebrows at him.

"Me?" Her voice was light with mirth, and Adrien felt a smile tugging at the corners of his own lips, even though he tried to stifle it. Marinette let out another giggle. "Aw, c'mon, Adrien, you gotta admit it was funny."

"I don't have to admit it," he pouted.

Marinette rolled her eyes goodnaturedly. "Fine, fine. Here, have a chocolate almond to make up for it." She rummaged around in rucksack and fished out a small chocolaterie box. "Papa's friend makes them. They're really good," she said, popping one in her mouth and offering the others to her friends.

Alya, Nino and Adrien all took one.

Nino was the first to react, letting out a strangled squeal and flapping his hands next to his mouth. Marinette nearly burst out laughing and nearly choked on hers, and that's when Adrien noticed she had her phone out to take photos. He frowned. What...?

Then he felt it: sudden intense heat engulfing his mouth, clawing its way up to his nose and down his throat. Adrien clapped his hands over his mouth to stop himself from spitting the almond out entirely and glared at Marinette, who was squealing with laughter. Suddenly she started coughing, and Alya – who seemed completely unaffected – had to smack her between the shoulder blades and lend her her water bottle.

"Serves you right!" Nino wheezed, snatching the bottle away to drink from himself.

"You-your f-faces..." Marinette squeaked, still in fits of laughter as she clung to the table. Adrien finally managed to swallow the almond and gulped the water Nino handed to him.

"None of you better be ill," Alya warned them when he handed it back.

"Marinette," Adrien whined, his hand on his heart. " _Why?_ "

Marinette tilted her head to one side, smiling fondly at him. "You looked upset, and I know you're worried about your recital tonight. Something told me you needed to get out of your head, and what better to do that than a prank or two?"

She winked at Adrien, and Adrien couldn't help but smile back at her, touched. He had a feeling it was so much "something" as "someone" who had told him that; namely, Plagg. He'd have to order something special from the cheese shop for when they swapped back.

\--

That evening when Adrien checked his phone in the car on the way home from school, he found that someone had changed his lockscreen to an unflattering image of Nino and himself half-choking on the chili almonds. From the angle, Adrien had a feeling it was Alya's photo. He smiled and reached into his bag, surreptitiously sneaking a few of the chili chocolate almonds out and popping one into his mouth. Marinette had given him the rest of the box. When you knew what you were getting, they became somewhat addictive.

He bit down and frowned. That wasn't an almond. That was...

Adrien peered into the box. These chocolates were smaller, and now he looked closely, the box was slightly different – it had a purple stripe instead of a red one.

He shot a text to Marinette: **Did you give me chocolate raisins on purpose? :(**

Her reply was just an emoji sticking its tongue out. Adrien spammed her with frowny faces until she replied again:

**Check your side pocket.**

Adrien opened the side pocket of his bag, where he usually kept his earbuds, and sure enough,the box of chili chocolate almonds was in there.

This time he spammed her with heart emojis until she begged him to stop.

\--

This was it. It was time. Adrien stood backstage waiting for the previous student to finish their solo and fiddled with his earrings – tiny cartilage cuffs hidden under his hair, Gabriel would have a conniption if he saw earrings on his son. Tikki patted his wrist from her place in his collar, nudging it away.

"You'll do fine," she whispered. Adrien nodded stiffly.

A buzz in his jacket pocket almost made him jump, and when Adrien took out his phone, the sight of his father's name and photo made his heart leap into his throat. Why was his father calling him now, of all times? Adrien hadn't seen him in the audience. Nathalie had been there, holding the tablet. It was possible he would watch from home.

Adrien swallowed, took a steadying breath, and answered the phone.

"Hello, Father?"

"GOOD LUCK!" Several voices yelled in his ear, followed by one of them adding "It's not your dad I changed my name and photo on your phone!"

Adrien bit back a yelp. "Wh- _Marinette?_ "

"April Fools again!" she sing-songed gleefully, and he heard the phrase echoed by his friends in the background. He huffed a quiet laugh as his heartrate returned to normal.

"You guys are idiots and I love you," he murmured, grinning.

"We knooow!" Alya and Marinette chorused, and his friends chimed in enthusiastically. Was the whole class there, he wondered? It wasn't just the girls, that was for sure.

"Knock 'em dead, bro!"

"Yeah, you're the best!"

"Not as good as me."

"Shut up Kim, you don't play the piano!"

"Studies show that laughter before a performance is an effective strategy for managing stage-fright, and -"

"You can do this Adrien!"

"Yeah, s'cool."

"You've got the song inside you, all you have to do is let it out."

The voices faded into the background, and Adrien thought he heard creaking.

"Are you guys on The Liberty?"

"Yep!" Said Marinette.

Adrien smiled and sighed. "I wish I was there with you."

"So come join us after to celebrate you nailing your recital," Marinette suggested. Adrien glanced towards the stage, where the previous student was winding down their sonata.

"I don't know, Marinette, it'll be late by the time I get home," he murmured.

"We'll wait for you," she said, before lowering her voice. "C'mon Kitty, it's Friday. Your dad already cancelled your weekend. You gotta have fun sometime."

He snorted quietly. "You've been talking to Plagg."

"Of course I have, that's the whole point of swapping them. Kiss Tikki for me, will you?" she added in a whisper.

"I will," he said. The previous student had finished and was bowing to light applause.

"See you later?" Marinette said hopefully.

He really couldn't say no to her. Besides, she was right: he was allowed to have a little fun.

"See you later," he said, before adding, with all the warmth in his heart: "Thanks, Marinette."


	2. Day 2: #marinettechallenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1.2K words of Adrien being an oblivious fool about his own feelings.

Adrien arrived home from his photoshoot and threw himself into his desk chair, completely spent.

Plagg flew out of his shirt and imitated him, landing on his desk. "That took sooo long!" He complained.

"I know," Adrien croaked. "I don't know what was up with Guiseppe today, he just didn't want to let me go."

Plagg grumbled something about child labour laws and drifted towards the minifridge to gorge on cheese. Adrien turned to his computer and switched it on, opening his browser to find an anime to zone out in front of. It opened to Instagram, and Adrien sat up a little, smiling. Alya had posted a photo of Marinette, sprawled across her desk, asleep with her pen in her hand. Sitting around her and grinning were Alix, Mylène, Rose and Juleka. Alya had captioned it: "Maybe we should start the #marinettechallenge, where everyone poses around their snoring classmate."

Adrien let out a quiet giggle. He was actually quite impressed with Marinette's ability to fall asleep anywhere and everywhere. Adrien often had trouble sleeping even in his own bed.

On a whim, he replied to Alya's comment. "Hahahaha! That's a great idea."

Ever online, Alya's reply came almost immediately: "You already won it on the startrain."

Adrien blinked. The startrain? What had happened on the startrain?

He thought back to that day. He mostly remembered being shocked awake when Max's mother had been akumatized, but before that, he'd fallen asleep – next to Marinette. And Alya, apparently, had noticed.

Adrien felt heat tingle on his cheeks. The memory was sweet, if a little embarassing. A small drop of doubt clouded his mind. He hoped he hadn't drooled on her or anything. Marinette would be the type to not say anything if he had.

Knowing Alya, she'd have taken a photo. Alya took photos of everything. He shot her a private message, and sure enough, she replied with an image of the two of them, leaning on each other, fast asleep. Adrien noted with relief that his mouth was closed.

His doubts relieved, he looked at the photo properly and smiled. It was a lovely shot. Unlike the Instagram photo, in this one Marinette's mouth was closed, her expression perfectly relaxed for once. Her eyelashes fanned out across her cheekbones – they were very long, he noticed – while her head rested on his shoulder.

It was silly, because he knew Marinette was capable of falling asleep anywhere, but Adrien remembered feeling touched that she trusted him enough to sleep on him. Of course, he knew that she'd been asleep before he'd swapped seats with Alya, but still. He was so used to Marinette being slightly nervous around him that he'd half-expected her to jump awake as soon as he sat down, but instead her head had flopped gently onto his shoulder, and it had been so adorable that he'd immediately leaned his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes as well.

He sighed, remembering how soft and relaxed she'd been, radiating warmth the way people do when they're deeply asleep. Adrien hadn't felt that warmth in years, not since childhood. It had made him feel safe – safe enough to fall asleep himself, apparently. Strange how he had trouble sleeping in his own bed, but had dropped off within minutes of Marinette leaning on his shoulder.

Details trickled back into his memory, and he examined them one by one, savouring them. Her cool, soft hair against his cheek, smelling like strawberry shampoo – the same shampoo as Ladybug, he'd noticed. The comforting weight of her body against his arm. Her hand brushing his, and the tickly warmth he'd felt as he'd stretched out a finger to stroke the back of her palm. And the dream he'd been having – probably brought on by the smell of her shampoo – in which it had been Ladybug leaning against him.

Adrien sighed. This wasn't the first time he'd subconsciously confused the two. Despite what he'd said after the whole Frightingale debâcle, they really did look alike. If he hadn't seen them both in the same place...

Adrien shook his head, trying to clear it. He wasn't going down that road again, not if he wanted to sleep tonight. He focused on the photo again – he hadn't taken his eyes off it yet – and pressed save. He wondered if Nino would tease him if he used it as his homescreen. He had very few candid photos of himself, and almost none where he was smiling. Both of them looked so peaceful, it was calming to look at.

"Adrieeen," Plagg whined from his pillow. "Quit drooling over Ladybug and come sleep."

"I'm not drooling over Ladybug," Adrien retorted.

"Oh, sure. Don't try to fool me, kid, I know that lovesick look."

"I'm not – it's not lovesick!" Adrien spluttered, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks. Plagg noticed his blush and zoomed towards him, eyes narrowed to slits. Reflexively, Adrien hid his phone behind his back.

Plagg smirked at him. "What, is it Ladynoir smut again?"

Adrien nearly choked. "Wha –  _you!_ \- Shut – It's  _not!_ "  _Plagg_ had been the one to find that particular fanfic. It wasn’t Adrien’s fault the plot had been compelling. 

He brought his phone around so Plagg could see it. " _See?_ " He huffed, pointing at the photo.

Plagg's eyes grew round, and then he cackled, backflipping in the air. Adrien scowled at him.

"What?"

"So you were drooling over your  _other_ girlfriend!" Plagg crowed.

"She's not my girlfriend, Plagg. Marinette's just a friend." The words felt automatic now, he'd said them so often.

"Right, right. You just spent the past forty minutes smiling like a lovesick kitten at a photo of your  _friend_ sleeping on your shoulder. Sure, kid." Plagg flew back towards the bed, still snickering.

Adrien closed the photo app and grabbed his pyjamas. Not a good photo for his homescreen, then. Plagg would never let him live it down. As he slipped into bed, sending Plagg dirty looks (which Plagg ignored, as he was already snoring), Adrien wondered what Alya had thought while taking the photo. Plagg wasn't the only one who'd suggested he might like Marinette as more than a friend – Alya and Nino seemed to think so, too, and so had Kagami at first. Adrien wondered, not for the first time, why people thought that of Marinette, rather than one of his other girl friends. Was there a difference in the way he treated her, or spoke about her? It was easy to sing her praises – Marinette was incredibly talented, as well as kind and considerate. Was that the reason?

Adrien's mind turned slowly, never wandering far from Marinette. He glanced at the clock: it had been an hour already, and he had class tomorrow, but sleep remained elusive. He sighed and turned over to his other side, not quite ready to accept the insomnia yet. The irony of keeping himself awake over a photo where he was peacefully sleeping was not lost on him.

He reached for his phone and opened the images app under the covers, hoping Plagg wouldn't be woken by the light. He'd never let him live this down. Adrien focused on the picture again, on the slight press of his cheek against her hair, and the details of the memory came rushing back once more. As if by magic, the tension seeped out of him. His eyes fluttered closed and he felt his mind drift on remembered warmth, soft hair, and the smell of strawberry shampoo. 


	3. Day 3: Multimouse and Adrien

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: non-graphic blood mention

Multimouse jumped from roof to roof with Adrien in her arms, riding a wave of barely-controlled fury. They’d kidnapped _Adrien_ . They’d almost _killed_ him. People entirely in their right minds, neither controlled by Hawkmoth nor drunk on miraculous power, not an akuma nor any other form of magic in sight – just people, with guns, motivated by money.

For some reason, this enraged her far more than Hawkmoth ever did.

She’d tried to get to him as Ladybug at first, but Chat Noir was nowhere to be found, and the warehouse they'd hidden Adrien in was guarded by real honest-to-god snipers. It felt like something out of a video game, only a thousand times more terrifying. After a couple of near-death experiences, she’d called in Viperion, but after thirty or so tries with him, he gently sat her down and told her she needed a another strategy.

"You're not thinking straight," he said. "I know you're scared for him, but this isn't working. You _need_ to calm down in order to think properly, and we need a different plan if you want to save Adrien."

Still frantic but trusting Viperion, Ladybug had called for her lucky charm, which guided her back to the miracle box. As Multimouse, she and Viperion had managed to distract the guards, grab Adrien (he'd somehow managed to escape and dispose of whatever they'd used to bind him to his chair), and knock out most of the criminals before escaping just as the police stormed the place. Viperion had stayed behind to explain, motioning quickly for her to get Adrien out of there.

Now, though, a small, reasonable, Tikki-like voice in her head was suggesting that maybe she should have stayed to talk to the police instead, leave Adrien in their care, use the opportunity to turn back into Ladybug and see if the miraculous cure would repair his bruises and the gash on his forehead – but it was too late for that now, she'd almost arrived at the Agreste mansion, and the way he was clinging to her, tight and trembling... it was probably selfish, but she didn't want to let him go just yet.

Especially since he _knew_ who was carrying him, and clung just the same.

When Multimouse showed up, she’d expected him to be surprised: Adrien had never seen Multimouse before. He probably didn't even know a mouse miraculous existed.

She hadn't expected him to recognize her.

"Marinette!" he gasped, and the joy and relief in his eyes had almost floored her before he clapped his hands over his mouth in horror. Luckily, the three criminals guarding him were thoroughly distracted by the various traps her other selves had sprung and hadn’t heard him.

"Wha- n-no, I'm – I'm Multimouse!" She’d stammered, all-too-Marinette-like. He nodded vigorously and apologized, and _maybe_ he’d bought the lie, but she doubted it.

_How can he recognize me as Multimouse but not as Ladybug?_

"Um..." his voice close to her ear, warm breath on her neck, jolted her out of her thoughts, and she half-tripped to a standstill on the edge of the roof of the Agreste mansion. She was about to jump off it to the next building over, too distracted to realize they'd already arrived.

"Oh! Sorry," she apologized, and put him down immediately. He had trouble letting go of her, his arms probably stiff from hanging off her neck for…

Her miraculous beeped urgently. About four minutes, maybe less. She glanced around, and he pulled her away from the edge of the roof, where people might see her.

"Thank you," he said, guiding her into the shadow of a chimney. The gratitude shining in his eyes cut through her anger like a sunbeam through murky water.

She smiled, but her eyes dropped to her feet. "It's okay," she said. "Um, I'm sorry I didn't... I should have left you with the police. They'd have probably taken you to hospital, and you'll need to make a statement anyway..."

His hands on both of her shoulders cut her off. "No, you did the right thing. Or... well." He grimaced. "Maybe you're right and I should have gone with the police, but I just… I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible."

She nodded. The anger was quickly giving way to a thousand tiny pins of panic, pricking with each beep of her miraculous. "Um, I should..."

"I won't tell a soul," he said quickly, and when she looked up at him, she knew it was useless to deny her identity. She knew she should pull away, or make him turn around, or _something_ , but she didn’t. "I _promise_ ,” he added. “I won't even tell Ladybug if you don't want me to. I..." There was something sincere and determined in his eyes that reminded her of when he'd first put on the snake miraculous. His hands were still gripping her shoulders. "You're an _awesome_ hero. You did _nothing_ wrong. It's not your fault I recognized you, I just..." He glanced away for a moment and pressed his lips together, frowning. "Even if you don't want it, I think you _deserve_ a miraculous. You're definitely good enough for one. I meant it when I said you're our every day Ladybug, and you just proved it again today."

Multimouse stared at Adrien, taking in his trusting smile and the slight flush on his cheeks. Her heart beat fast wings against her ribcage. She knew he thought highly of her, but she hadn't realized just how much. He hadn't looked at all surprised that his shy, clumsy classmate had been the one to come to save him. On the contrary, he'd _recognized her immediately_.

His faith in Ladybug, like that of most civilians, she was used to.

His faith in _Marinette_ left her speechless.

The last of the beeps sounded, and her transformation vanished in a flash of pink light. Adrien blinked, but his expression didn’t change as Mullo flew into Marinette’s handbag.

 _He really thinks the world of me_ , she thought.

A lump rose in her throat, and to her horror, she felt hot tears spill down hotter cheeks before she could stop them. Adrien's eyes widened in dismay.

"What's wrong?"

"I – I - " What _was_ wrong with her? Marinette was so full of different emotions that she had no idea where to start. She said the first truth that came to mind. "I was s-so _scared!_ I thought I was going to f-fail and they were going to h-hurt you or – or – _worse_ -"

And suddenly she was crying into his shirt. Adrien hugged her tight and close, as close as she wanted to hug him. His hands on her back and hair rubbed and soothed the tension away, while his voice next to her ear murmured reassurances like “I’m fine, I’m here, for as long as you need,” and “You were amazing, you’re _always_ amazing Marinette,” until the storm of tears turned to drizzle and ebbed away.

When she came to her senses, they were sitting against the chimney in a tight knot of limbs, and his shirt, fisted in her hands, was soaked. She let go, trying to flatten the wrinkles she’d made in it, and Adrien let out a low laugh.

“Leave it, I’ve got plenty of shirts. This one’s torn anyway.” He lifted one blood-spotted sleeve to show her.

“I could fix that,” Marinette offered in a voice that still wobbled. It made him laugh again. She _loved_ his laugh.

“Or you could let me treat you to ice cream for saving my life, and never have to think of this shirt again,” he said. She met his eyes reluctantly. She must look terrible, red-eyed and blotchy from crying, but he was gazing at her like she’d saved his life. Which she had.

It _was_ nice to be recognized as her civilian self once in a while.

“I’ll take the ice cream, but not today,” she said. “Your father’s worried sick, and you need to talk to the police. And,” she added, sighing, “so do I.”

He frowned. “Can’t you get out of it? You’re a superhero.”

“They weren’t akumatized,” she said. “I’m - Multimouse is a witness, and they need to be brought to justice. She might have to testify. Also, we need to get you down from this roof.”

Adrien sighed, too. “I guess you’re right.”

Untangling herself from him felt wrong and slightly painful, like ripping cotton with nothing but bare hands. Adrien barely helped at all. She supposed he must be tired, or worried about her, or worried about dealing with the police, because there was no way he was already missing their hug, not the way she was.

At least she’d have to carry him to get him to the ground again.

She opened her purse, and received a nod from the mouse kwaami.

“Mullo, transform me!”

—

“…There was no sign of Chat Noir at all? So then… But… No… Yes. I specifically requested… None? Ah… Good. That’s all I needed to know… Yes, you will receive the full amount as we discussed. Yes. If there are any problems, take them up with my secretary. Goodnight.”

Gabriel hung up and slumped back in his chair. Nathalie placed a cup of green tea on the coffee table and stood, waiting.

“I believe we can stop the investigation,” Gabriel said eventually.

“Sir?”

“You may lighten surveillance. My son is not Chat Noir.”


	4. Day 4: Hand Touches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever wish Adrien were *less* oblivious? Here's nearly 1500 words of self-indulgent fluff!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I uploaded this one twice, forgot to delete the second upload after someone told me about it, and when I finally did this morning, I lost four comments that I hadn't read. So if you left me a comment on that other chapter, I'm really sorry! :(

Adrien had been acting weird for a while now.

No, weird was too strong a word: he’d been acting differently towards her. Closer. Paying more attention to her, listening to her more, talking to her, joking with her,  _touching_ her. As though they’d had some deep heart-to-heart at some point, or there’d been a montage where they did a bunch of fun stuff together and became the best of friends. Except that hadn’t happened. Marinette would remember if it had, because even now, as she was trying to move on from him and focus on Luka, even now she still filed away every single moment they spent together in a treasure chest in her mind, to replay late at night when she was too spent to feel guilty about it.

The touches were simultaneously the best and worst moments. The best later, when she was no longer in the moment, wondering how on earth he  _expected_ her to react to him stroking her hair out of her face to wake her up before class started, or sliding onto the bench next to her during break, pushing against her side until she made room for him. When she was alone, she could imagine herself differently, replace her dumbstruck silences with witty comebacks or heartfelt declarations, her blushes with smirks.

The worst was that she had to pretend the contact didn’t ignite a fire under her skin every time it happened, the embers of which lit up with a mere memory. Pretend she didn’t wish she were Kagami, honest and unafraid and  _Adrien’s girlfriend,_ or so everyone had assumed, although technically neither of them had acknowledged it. But no, actually, that wasn’t the worst part.

The  _real_ worst part was that she had to pretend it didn’t break her heart. Because if Adrien knew the truth, he’d blame himself, and stay away from her. And as much as she dreaded the embarrassment of being rendered completely useless, Marinette didn’t want these moments to stop. Not just for the way they made her head swim and her skin tingle - though she would be lying if she said that had nothing to do with it - but for another, entirely different kind of warmth she felt around him these days. Somehow, despite how awkward she was around him, Adrien had decided they were close friends, and Marinette would rather die than lose Adrien’s friendship. Especially to something as silly as a crush.

As he slid into the seat next to her on the coach, offering her one of his earbuds and pushing the armrest back so he could snuggle up against her side, Marinette thought that today might be the day she actually died. She glanced over at Alya, sitting across from them and cuddling up to Nino  _in exactly the same way_ Adrien was cuddling up to her ( _how did he not think this was ambiguous?!_ ) and vaguely thought of sending her an S.O.S. via text, but it was too late. Adrien would want to see what she was writing, and would tease her mercilessly about mystery lovers if she refused to show him - one thing their new closeness had taught her was that Adrien was a tease. She should have taken up Alya’s offer when she’d made it, ten minutes ago in the girls’ bathroom.

“Just let me know, okay? Even when we’re already on the bus, I can still ask Adrien to swap seats. Nino and I can cuddle later.”

But Marinette had already used Alya as a buffer several times lately, and she’d seen the hurt and confusion in Adrien’s eyes the last two times.

She’d rather die than lose his friendship because of a silly crush.

—

They’d listened to all of Jagged Stone’s albums and were working their way through Clara Nightingale’s. There had been a break for lunch, during which Alya had repeated her offer in a low whisper, but she’d been holding Nino’s hand while she said it, and Marinette didn’t have the heart to separate them.

Besides, it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. As long as she concentrated on the music, she could talk normally, and Adrien seemed happy to carry most of the conversation, or let it peter out to companionable silence while they listened and watched the wheat and corn fields slip past the window.

When one of those quiet moments lasted past the end of the song, Marinette turned to look at him, and saw that his eyes were closed. She sighed, allowing herself to relax a bit more - and froze, undoing it all. His hand had fallen between them, onto hers.

Marinette’s heart tried to beat its way up her throat to freedom. She swallowed hard. She knew what she  _should_ do: pull her hand out from under his, turn away so that she was facing forward properly and not angled towards him, let his head flop onto her shoulder like the good friend she was and ignore the akumas fluttering in her belly, just waiting for her to slip up so they could transform her into her worst self.

She didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she glanced around to make sure noone was watching, then closed her eyes, leaned against his shoulder, and shifted her hand just slightly up, facing his. It didn’t count if she was asleep, right?

(Tikki would scold her if she knew, but Tikki was in a sugar coma in her purse.)

His fingers fell naturally between hers, and she wriggled them just slightly so that they were loosely interlaced. Guilt and elation battled inside her, but she reasoned that if he woke up like that, maybe he’d realize that he was sending her the wrong signals, and back off a little of his own accord.

Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. Let him know just how he was affecting her, let him think she’d started falling for him since they’d gotten closer, let him freak out just a little bit without her actually telling him, and  _maybe_ he’d back off a little. Start treating her the way he treated Nino, perhaps. That could work, right?

_Please let it work_ .

—

She woke to a face full of Adrien’s shirt, and his hand gently shaking her shoulder. Marinette lifted her head, checking to make sure she hadn’t drooled on him (she hadn’t, but it had been a close thing), and saw everyone getting off the bus without them.

“We’re here,” Adrien said.

Marinette blinked up at him, then glanced down at their hands. They were still intertwined in the space between them, and he seemed disinclined to let go.

“Um,” said Marinette eloquently.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” he said, smiling fondly at her like she was the cutest thing in the world.

Marinette rubbed her eyes with her free hand. This had to stop. “Adrien,” she murmured, “You can’t just hold my hand like this without…”

Without people thinking they were together. Without getting her hopes up.

She bit her lip, staring at their joined hands so as not to see his expression.

There was a pause. It occurred to her that maybe Adrien had finished her sentence differently and somehow taken it as a rejection, or a confession, or -

“Without what?”

His voice came from very close, and Marinette looked up to find him right there in front of her. His hair tickled her forehead and his eyes were the colour of leaves shot through with sunlight and she couldn’t look away if she wanted to.

She didn’t want to.

“Without what, Marinette?”

Her breath caught. He was expecting an answer.

It took all the self-discipline she possessed to tear her eyes away from his and formulate a reply.

“Th-this is the kind of thing you’d do with your - your girlfriend,” she murmured. A blush burned her cheeks and she knew he could see it.

There was a pause, before he leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek. Heat flared in her belly as her heart thundered, struggling against the bars she’d put up to protect it. This was nothing like the kisses they exchanged to greet each other every day.

“Then,” he said softly, pulling away just enough to see her face, “be my girlfriend?”

She gasped, eyes on his again. His cheeks were pink and he was biting his lip, but he didn’t look away. His eyes were bright and hopeful and just a little scared.

Her heart beat and beat its wings and  _soared_ .

“…Okay,” she breathed.

His smile of relief and happiness was worth a lifetime of waiting.

His lips meeting hers, noses bumping, swallowing her squeak of surprise with a low chuckle that she felt as much as heard, and the fire that exploded just beneath her skin as he cupped her face like she was some precious treasure and finally, _finally_ kissed her…

That was worth a thousand lifetimes.


	5. Day 5: Statue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug is leaving the Musée Grevin when she hears Adrien coming, panics, and pretends to be a statue.
> 
> Or, how many cheese puns can I fit in one fic?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay look. I know this is *technically* Ladrien for most of the chapter, BUT I count it as Adrinette because she wasn't acting like Ladybug at all, she was acting like Marinette, aka - overthinking and catastrophizing and making everything ten times worse in the process. Enjoy!

Ladybug left the workshop of the Musée Grevin yawning, stretching, and wiping plaster dust off her feet. To think someone would attempt to steal her statue!

“Probably a hardcore fan,” the assistant had said, rolling her eyes. “We get them all the time. We’ve had to put individual alarms around Clara Nightingale and Jagged Stone.”

Whoever it was had dropped the Ladybug statue when the alarm had gone off, broken it into pieces, and run off with the feet. As a result of which, Ladybug had spent the last twenty minutes sitting with her feet in plaster of Paris, watching the artisan piece her statue together while grumbling about fanatics with no respect for hard work.

She was walking through the front hall on her way out when she heard a familiar voice and froze. Adrien! What was he doing here?! Had he been called in as well? She wasn’t prepared! What if he saw her and remembered what had happened the last time they were here?! This was a disaster!

The fact that Adrien would see Ladybug, and not Marinette, didn’t register in her panic-frozen brain. All she knew was that Adrien was  _coming_ and he was going to  _see her_ and  _remember_ and they’d have to say hi and talk to each other and it would be  _awkward as hell_ and nope nope nope there was _no effing way_ she was going to let this happen.

Five minutes later, as Adrien sat waiting waiting to be called into the studio on a bench next to where she was standing, Ladybug was mentally cursing herself. What on earth had possessed her to strike a pose? On one leg?! Her right leg was trembling already and all Adrien had to do was glance her way and he’d see it. She wished she’d just said hi or hidden behind a column or something while she had the chance.  _This_ was a disaster.

At least he hadn’t made an elaborate declaration of eternal love to her. Like  _that_ would ever happen, ha! She didn’t know what she’d do if he did. Give herself away by self-combusting on the spot, probably. Or melt into a gooey puddle, leading him to believe that she actually was a wax statue. 

As it was, he’d looked at her, smiled that beautiful fond smile of his, and sat down to wait, pulling his earbuds out as he did so. Marinette could just about hear what sounded like a Mandarin vocabulary lesson. He looked quite absorbed, and she was just eyeing the nearest column and wondering if she could get up and around the top of it without him noticing, when a high, scratchy, half-familiar voice rose in complaint.

“This is boooring!”

Ladybug nearly lost her balance in surprise, and shot a glance at Adrien to see if he’d noticed. He was rolling his eyes and pausing his lesson, apparently unsurprised by the voice.

“Weren’t you sleeping?” he asked, looking pointedly downwards, at… himself?

“The quiet woke me up. You know I need noise to sleep.”

“I can’t lend you my earbuds, I need to revise Mandarin for my test this evening.”

“You’ll ace it like you always do. C’mon kid, I need my audible chaos!”

“It’s called white noise” Adrien said with an amused smile. “Stop trying to sound badass.”

Ladybug forgot she wasn’t supposed to be looking at him and stared in shock as a tiny black cat flew out of Adrien’s shirt.

“I’m literally the god of chaos and destruction. I don’t need to _try,_ I’m already the most badass thing in the universe,” said the cat-thing, which Ladybug recognized as a kwami.

Adrien reached up and scratched the kwami between the ears with one finger. “Sure you are, Plagg,” he said, and yep, that was Plagg playfully nipping at Adrien’s finger, Plagg the kwami of chaos and destruction,  _Chat Noir’s_ kwami, who she’d met once when Chat Noir had been turned into a glitter statue and again when she’d lost her own miraculous, and a lot of things about those days were suddenly making sense - in fact a lot of things were suddenly making sense  _in general_ and suddenly Ladybug wished she’d just shouted “boo!” or something before any of this had happened because  _this_ was a  _real actual_ disaster.

Ladybug’s heartbeat thundered in her head. She was surprised Adrien couldn’t hear it. He seemed to be bickering with his kwami, something about putting up with stinky cheese smells.

“I put up with you, too! Your puns are cheesier than my cheese!” Plagg pouted, sticking his tongue out at Adrien.

“Are you _purr_ about that?” Adrien quipped, with a grin that was purr - _pure_ Chat (she was thinking in puns and it was _Adrien’s_ fault!). “I’m _purr_ -tty sure that’s im- _paw_ -sible.”

“Two puns using the same word. You’re losing your touch, kid.”

“I disa- _brie._ But it’s kind of you to _mimolette_ me _purr_ -actise on you before I try them out on Ladybug.”

Plagg stared at him in disbelief. “Disa- _brie_ isn’t even yours. I’ve seen that one on the Internet.”

“A lot of them aren’t mine,” Adrien admitted cheerfully. “I _comté_ be a genius all the _tomme_.”

Plagg hid his face in his paws and groaned.

“Why so _bleu_ , Plagg?” Adrien continued mercilessly. “C’mon, puns are good _emmental_ training.”

“LA LA LA LA LA” Plagg shouted tunelessly, flying away from Adrien and, to Ladybug’s mounting horror, _towards her_.

_Disaster disaster disaster disaster DISASTER -_

Plagg zipped around her head, landed lightly between her shoulderblades - and froze, claws nicking the fabric of her suit.

Adrien chased him, oblivious.  _“Rye_ are  _ewe_ running away, Plagg? I’m not a  _munster_ !” He reached up to catch the kwami, coming dangerously close to touching Ladybug - but Plagg, thank goodness, had other ideas.

“Rye is a type of bread, you dork!” he shouted, zipping over Adrien’s head and leading him away from her.

“It’s _stilton_ a pun,” Adrien sang, running after Plagg. _“Cow_ -m on, my puns are _gouda_! I _camembert_ you leaving me!”

“Ladybug’s going to leave you when she hears those puns,” Plagg said, circling round again and flashing her an all-to-knowing grin. Ladybug considered just fleeing at this point, but her sense of impending doom had her rooted to the spot.

“ _Chimay_ not,” Adrien countered. He slowed, and a dreamy look appeared on his face. _“Gruyère’s_ a chance she’ll laugh, I _dairy_ hope. I _swiss_ she would, anyway.”

Far beneath the roiling haze of shock and panic, it occurred to Ladybug, for the first time ever, that perhaps Chat Noir had been  _holding back_ on the puns.

_Does Plagg have to live with this every day?_

Before she could pity him, however, the door to the studio suddenly opened and the assistant walked in.

Adrien and Plagg froze. Then Plagg zipped out of sight behind a column, far too late.

The assistant stared from the column to Adrien. Her mouth opened and closed, and Ladybug could almost see the gears turning in her head. Adrien was as white as a sheet. Everyone knew what kwamis were since the kwamibuster incident, which meant that Chat Noir’s identity was about to be exposed.

“Was that a kwa-”

“That was mine!”

Ladybug’s voice, high and panicked and far too loud, echoed off the walls as she spun to face the assistant.

The assistant let out a screech, clutching her heart. Adrien’s gasp was barely audible in comparison.

“Ladybug! I thought you’d gone home!”

“I - I was! I did! But then Chat Noir told me he’d lost his kwami so I was looking for him, and Adrien was helping me!” She babbled, walking quickly over to the column behind which Plagg was hiding. Their eyes followed her like spotlights. “Chat Noir’s kwami has a tendency to wander off and get lost sometimes, and Chat Noir couldn’t search _himself_ in such a public place in case someone found out his identity, so we’re looking for him. N-not that Adrien knows Chat Noir’s identity! Nor I for that matter! I got the message on my bugphone -” she grabbed an outraged-looking Plagg from behind the pillar and yanked Adrien to her side while still prattling at the museum assistant. “Anyway, sorry to bother you again, I have to get these two home now, bye!”

“But - wait -!”

The assistant’s shout echoed in the empty hall.

How Ladybug had gotten them from inside the building to a roof several blocks away would be forever lost to the blackout depths of her reptilian brain. The next thing she remembered was glaring at Adrien and Plagg, who were staring at her in varying degrees of horror. She was on the verge of a serious freak out.

“What the hell were you-!” she started, before a wave of pink light washed over her. Marinette yelped and tried to cover her body with her hands even though she was fully dressed, and wondered _what the hell Tikki was thinking_.

“ _WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!!”_ yelled the tiny goddess of all creation, grabbing Plagg out of the air and making everyone jump.

“What the hell was _I_ thinking?! What the hell was _she_ thinking!” Plagg retorted, pointing at Marinette while trying to twist out of the grip Tikki had on the scruff of his neck.

“Don’t you _dare_ try to pin this on Marinette! Without her, Chat Noir’s secret identity wouldn’t be a secret any more!”

“Oh sure, blame me, everything’s always my fault -”

Marinette and Adrien continued to stare at each other as their kwamis continued to bicker. The scale of this disaster was no longer measurable. Marinette wondered vaguely how one got hold of Bunnix these days.

Adrien recovered first, blinking and shaking his head to clear it. His brow furrowed slightly, and he took a hesitant step towards Marinette.

“What the hell _were_ you thinking?” he asked gently, looking more concerned for her than anything else. His hand hovered close to her arm for a second, as though he expected her to flinch away from him. She stared at it dumbly. That was Chat Noir’s hand. Chat Noir was Adrien. Adrien was Chat Noir. Chat Noir was _Adrien_. _Adrien_ was _Chat Noir_. _Chat Noir was -_

His hand landed on her arm and squeezed it. “Marinette? What are you thinking now?”

She had to say something. Something reassuring, so he’d think she was fine. Something wise or cool or funny or -

She blurted out the first thing that came to her head.

“C-cat’s out of the bag?”

Adrien stared at her. Plagg stared at her. Tikki stopped yelling and stared at her.

Marinette let out a high, strangled giggle.

“I think we broke her,” Adrien said.

It took twenty full minutes for Marinette to stop laughing, and the rest of the evening for them to talk each other down enough to suit up and head back home.

When an akuma interrupted their more private respective freak-outs to transform half of Paris into wax statues while shouting at Ladybug to bring Adrien back for his appointment, neither of them were surprised.


	6. Day 6: Aspik and Marinette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette bumps into Aspik - literally - and has a nosebleed. Cuteness ensues.
> 
> TW: blood mentions, obviously, but it's not detailed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the author will not be held responsible for any physical, emotional or mental damage caused by comparison of Aspik to a baby. You're lucky I didn't write "egg", because the original plan was for them to have a pun battle, but I figured I did enough puns last chapter anyway. Let us just enjoy the fluff without any drama, shall we? :D

It had been a long day. Two hours and ten minutes longer than a normal day, to be exact - for Aspik, anyway. Labyrinthitis, an akuma victim with an inner ear infection, had been particularly hard to beat, and Aspik had had to recharge twice before Ladybug managed to purify the akuma.

She’d run off immediately afterwards, earrings beeping shrilly, while he had followed at a much more leisurely pace. Ladybug hadn’t needed his second chance powers the third time, so he was in no danger of detransforming, nor was he in a hurry to get back to his photoshoot.

The same could not be said of the pink and blue blur that came rushing out of a side street, tripped over its own feet, and careened into him, nearly getting them both run over by a bus.

“OhmygodImsosorryIdidntseeyouatall-EEP!” squeaked the blur, who turned out to be Marinette.

Aspik laughed and set her down on her feet.

“It’s alright,” he said, biting down the urge to tack “Princess” onto the end of his sentence. “You should be more careful, though. You could have been hurt.”

Marinette nodded dumbly, her face the same shade of pink as her jeans. As she did so, a drop of blood trickled out of her nostril.

“Oh no, you are hurt!” Aspik reached for his pockets, forgetting _again_ that he wasn’t Chat Noir at the moment. Of course, there were no pockets. “Come here, I’ll take you home,” he said, and before she could protest, he picked her up and leapt onto the nearest roof.

Ten minutes later they were on her balcony, Marinette sitting in a deck chair holding several tissues to her nose while Aspik hovered fretfully over her.

“Are you sure you don’t need a doctor or something? That’s… a lot of blood.”

Marinette, who was looking somewhat haggard, shook her head and waved away his concerns. “I’b fide,” she said through the tissues. “This used to habbed a lot whed I was a kid. I’b used to it.”

Aspik frowned. “Shouldn’t I at least fetch one of your parents?”

Marinette wagged a finger at him. “Dote you dare, it’s the 4 o’clock rush and by dad’ll totally overreact. Really, I’b fine. Look…” she removed the bundle of tissues carefully, wiping her nose with them. “See? It’s stopped.”

Aspik crouched in front of Marinette and examined her face. Her nose had dried blood smeared on it, and there were bags under her eyes, but her cheeks were their usual sunset pink, which reassured him. He sighed in relief and met her eyes, to find her examining him with just as much attention.

When she saw him looking, the pink deepened prettily.

“S-sorry, I was just…”

“Just?”

“Um. I was looking at your costume.”

Aspik nodded. That made sense. Marinette wanted to be a designer, after all. He stood and held his arms out in front of him, examining the suit himself.

“Pretty cool, huh?” he said.

Marinette hummed. “I guess…”

Aspik raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like it?”

"Oh – oh no, I didn't mean it like that! You look good – I mean it looks good..." Marinette waved her hands in flustered reassurance, and Aspik chuckled.

"What would you change about it?" he asked instead.

Marinette blinked, and stood slowly, her expression changing from embarrassed to thoughtful. She picked at the fabric on one of his arms. “The colour scheme’s great, don’t get me wrong, and the pattern’s cool. I like the diamonds and the little fangs on your mask.”

“But?”

Her mouth twisted uncertainly. “Um, well, I guess… it’d be nice to see your hair?”

Aspik let out a startled laugh. His hand ran backwards over the very bald head of his suit. “I guess I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “I wasn’t really thinking ‘pretty’ when I first transformed.”

Marinette cocked her head. “You can influence your suit’s appearance?” She sounded surprised, and Aspik remembered then that Marinette had once worn the mouse miraculous.

“My kwami said our suits are what we want deep down,” he said, which was true, although Sass hadn’t been the one to say it.

“So Chat Noir really wanted that bell,” Marinette said, tapping her chin with one finger and looking comically puzzled.

“Hey, I like the bell!” Aspik exclaimed - before suppressing the urge to facepalm. Why was he having so much trouble remembering he wasn’t Chat Noir? Was it the balcony?

“You like the bell?” Marinette repeated, looking somewhat taken aback at his indignance.

Aspik rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, it’s cute, right?” He said lamely.

Marinette raised an eyebrow, an amused glimmer in her eye. “It kinda ruins the whole badass vibe he seems to be going for,” she said. “Though maybe that was the point. He does seem to be the comic relief of the team.”

Aspik’s jaw dropped open. “Ah - hey,” he said, trying not to laugh. “Careful what you say there. You have in front of you a - a serious Chat Noir fan.”

Marinette grinned. “Really? I’d have pegged you for a Ladybug fan.”

Aspik felt his cheeks redden even as his smile stretched towards his ears. “That’s different,” he said, glancing off to the side.

There was a pause, and he looked up to see Marinette’s grin fading into something like surprise.

“It is? I-I mean, do you…?” Her voice was quiet, but the corners of her lips were still slightly curled up, and he wondered just how hard she’d tease him if she knew just how badly in love with Ladybug he was. He wondered if he’d mind.

“Shuddup,” he mumbled, looking away but unable to keep the dopey smile off his face.

Another pause. He glanced back at her, nervous but enjoying her reactions nonetheless. They were cute and funny and completely unpredictable. Now, for instance, she was blushing.

“Why are _you_ blushing?” he asked, nudging her with his shoulder.

Her blush deepened even further. “Second-hand embarrassment,” she mumbled, before nudging him back and adding, “you dork.”

Aspik laughed. “Serves you right for teasing me. I had no idea you could be this merciless, Marinette.”

Her eyebrows pucked. His eyes widened.

_Oh crap. Did she tell me her name? I don’t think she told me her name! She’s going to guess I'm Chat Noir and I’ll have to tell Ladybug a civilian knows Aspik-me’s identity and she'll never trust Adrien with a miraculous ever again!_

Maybe it was for the best. Maybe three different identities were just too hard to juggle. Two were crazy enough. Maybe Ladybug would let him see Sass sometimes, just to say hi and chat. Maybe -

“You should ask Ladybug out on a date. Just to see what happens,” Marinette said. She was blushing furiously again, but Aspik was so relieved she hadn’t picked up on his mistake that he barely noticed.

“W-what?” he blurted, then laughed as he processed her words. “Nah, there’s no way she could like _me_ like that. Besides,” he added, pointing at his head, “You said it yourself. Not exactly pretty without the hair.”

“Okay, first of all, that is not what I said,” Marinette corrected. “I said it’d be _nice_ to see your hair. I never said you weren’t pretty.”

Aspik swallowed the urge to quip  _So you think I’m pretty?_ He’d already compromised one secret identity today, and Marinette was closer to Chat Noir than most civilians.

“And secondly,” she continued, her voice softening as she reached up to run her fingertips over his head, “it’s kinda cute.”

Aspik shivered pleasantly under her touch, his heart quickening a little as he looked into Marinette’s eyes. Had they always been  _that_ shade of blue? Almost like…

“Like a baby,” she added with a shy sort of smirk, killing the strange little spell she seemed to have cast over him in the space of a second and looking absolutely adorable while doing it.

Aspik blinked, and pouted. “Meanie.”

Marinette burst out laughing. “That’s even cuter!” she said between giggles. He stuck his tongue out at her and she doubled over, clutching her sides.

“Careful, your nose might start bleeding again,” he warned her, only half-joking.

Marinette stopped laughing just long enough to push him towards the balcony railing. “Ok, your work here is done,” she declared, unable to keep the grin off her face despite her semblance of offense. “I was on my way somewhere, believe it or not, before I bumped into you.”

“Why are you saying that like it’s my fault?”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

He didn’t want to go. This was fun. But she was right, and he shouldn’t overstay his welcome, even if her smile made him want to tease her back.

“You might want to wipe the blood off your face before you go back out,” he said.

Marinette’s eyes widened and her hands rushed to cover her nose and mouth.

“You’re only telling me this _now?_ ” she yelped.

“Nobody saw it but me,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but…”

Another indecipherable look, another strange little blush. Marinette was  _fascinating_ .

“I do have to go, though,” he said, his voice soft with regret.

She smiled a lopsided little smile, just visible beneath her hands. “Thank you for catching me, and bringing me home. And making me laugh.”

He cocked his head in a little bow that he hoped wasn’t too Chat Noir. “Any time. Bye, Marinette.”

“Bye, Aspik.”

It wasn’t until he’d been home for ten minutes already that he realized he hadn’t told her his name either.


	7. Day 7: Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The barred notes are the ones that never got sent, unless they're in the middle on an un-barred note, in which case they're just barred and readable by the recipient.
> 
> Honestly I wanted to do something else for this fic, like have Adrien and Marinette write to each other in Mandarin to practise, but that would have required finding someone who spoke Mandarin to help write it, and I don't have time. I hope you enjoy this one anyway!

_Dear Ladybug,_

  
  


_If you are reading this, then something has happened to Chat Noir that requires you to know his identity. While it is risky, you are the Guardian now, and I trust you to judge whether or not the risks outweigh the benefits in whatever situation you find yourselves in. I appreciate that time may be of the essence; however, utmost precaution must always be taken with the identities of miraculous holders, and as such, I have written his civilian name into a riddle which I hope only you can solve:_

  
  


_My first is the wall between us_

_My last is our enemy’s namesake_

_Whichever falls first, for better or worse_

_The fate of the world is at stake._

  
  


_I hope this is enough to guide you to your friend._

_Master no longer,_

_Wang Fu._

—

**Marinette:** Hey, can you meet me in the library after school? I need to ask you something important.

—

_Marinette,_

_My dad’s watching my phone, so I’m just not using it for now. I can’t meet up after school or during lunch at the moment, but we could talk during break if that’s okay?_

_Adrien._

—

_During break is fine. See you in the library! - Marinette._

—

_Adrien,_

_I’m so sorry I couldn’t meet you in the library! I got held up by the akuma, and by the time I got there, you were gone already. Can we meet during afternoon break instead?_

_Marinette._

—

_It’s no problem, and yes of course!_

—

_Marinette,_

_I’m sorry we missed each other again! Two akumas in one day is super bad luck. Tomorrow morning, break in the library?_

_Adrien._

—

_No problem. :) - Marinette._

—

_I’m so sorry Marinette, Lila wouldn’t leave me alone. Are you sure you can’t tell me during class? Or write it down? I won’t show anybody, I promise. - Adrien._

—

_No, I’m really sorry, it’s kinda private. But not in a weird way!! I can’t explain further I’m REALLY sorry. Do you have fencing today? - Marinette_

—

_It’s been canceled, and my father’s having Nathalie call every day to check whether I’m there or not, so I can’t slip out any more. :(_

—

~~_Adrien, that’s not just overprotective, that’s abusive and controlling._ ~~

~~_Why is he doing this to you??_ ~~

~~—~~

_I’m sorry that’s happening to you. If you want to talk about it, we can keep writing to each other? Pass me your notes at the same time so we don’t get caught by Mme Bustier. - Marinette_

—

_There’s not much to tell. He’s just suddenly become super paranoid about where I am and who I’m with. I’m under constant surveillance at home. I know Lila’s watching me for him at school, too, because he knows about things that happened here that nobody else could have told him. He probably knows we’ve been sending each other notes. He thinks all my classmates except Lila and Chloe are bad influences._

_Sorry for complaining to you. There’s nothing you can do about it, so please don’t try, especially not with Lila. She might get you in trouble again. School wouldn’t be half as fun without you here._

_\- Adrien_

—

~~_Adrien, this is abuse._ ~~

~~—~~

_ Adrien, I’m so sorry. You’re right, I don’t think there’s anything I can do other than try to cheer you up in  ~~ claws ~~ class. You did call me your everyday  **Ladybug** once, so I’ll try to live up to that at least. I can’t think of any jokes right now, but here’s a doodle anyway. (::) _

—

_Thanks, Marinette. You’re the best. :)_

—

_Maybe we should stop the notes. Lila nearly got you in trouble again. It’s a good thing Madame Bustier’s nice. :( - Adrien_

—

_I HATE HER I HATE HER_

_Not Mme B, she’s cool. You know who I mean. I hate that she still pretends we’re friends. I wish I could turn her into a frog or something. Or an oyster. - (::)_

—

~~_Haha why an oyster_ ~~

~~_Wait what did you mean by_ ~~

~~_LA_ ~~

~~_LB_ ~~

~~_IS THAT_ ~~

~~_ARE YOU_ ~~

~~_Is it really you??_ ~~

~~_Are you saying what I think you’re saying?_ ~~

~~_I’m trying to find a way to word this that won’t_ ~~

~~_How about if I pretend I’m sick and you take me to the infirmary and that way we can talk_ ~~

—

_I can practically hear what you’re writing without even reading it haha. Stop, you’re going to get caught. I’ll bring you breakfast tomorrow morning. Don’t worry, we’ll get a chance to talk, I paw-mise. (::)_

—

~~_Ok this is definitely urgent_ ~~

~~_Now I know what you mean when you said it was important_ ~~

~~_Can’t we ask Nino and Alya for help just this once_ ~~

~~—~~

_So you know why I haven’t been available now I guess. ^-^_

—

_You have no idea how relieved I am. Now quit sending me notes! (::)_

—

_I might have some idea. <3 _

—

_Good morning Adrien! I hope you like cookies! I made these last night as a test batch, we’re thinking of selling them. Let me know what you think! - (::) PS - check out the rice paper designs on the bottom of them._

—

_ I LOVE COOKIES. I will gladly taste test any cookies you want me to. The cat paw ones were paw-sitively paw-some, but I liked the  **ladybug** ones the best. ;) - ^-^ PS - Your designs are really clear, but because of that, I’m afraid to give Nino one. He might not appreciate your talent. _

—

_Two puns in one sentence is too many first thing in the morning! >.< And yes, Nino can have one. Just remove the rice paper first. PS - nice move putting the note in your pen. (::)_

—

_I wish we could talk properly. :( Can’t you ask Alya to distract her? ^-^_

—

_We don’t know why your father’s doing this. Maybe he’s been akumatized. Best not to._

—

_I don’t know what to do._

—

_ What if we played a duet for the talent show? You on the piano, me on the  **flute** . Could we practice at your house, say, tonight at 9pm? (::) _

—

~~_I didn’t know you played the_ ~~

—

_Are you sure about this?_

—

_Do you trust me?_

—

_Always._

—

_CHAT NOIR FINALLY SPOTTED AFTER THREE-WEEK ABSENCE - A LADYBLOG EXCLUSIVE!_


	8. Day 8: Hair Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien agrees to let his hair down as long as Marinette does the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was somehow the quickest prompt to write and also the longest. I guess I just enjoy writing them doing every day stuff together. Here's nearly 2500 words of what are basically headcanons disguised as dialogue, including some not-so-subtle-but-not-explicit autistic Adrien. Enjoy!

“Dude c’mon! Are you gonna let your old man dictate _everything_ about you appearance?”

“Nino, for the last time, yes. If I dyed my hair, he’d have a heart attack. And ground me forever.”

“Even for one day? This stuff washes right off, I promise!”

“Then why is your hair still green four days later?”

“I’ve only washed it once since then, that’s why. Don’t look at me like that, hair doesn’t need washing that much - and not everybody showers three times a day, that’s just you.”

“What are you guys talking about?”

Adrien half-turned in his seat and shot Alya a pleading look.  _Please tell him to drop it_ , the look said.  _Please shut him up_ .

The amused smile he got in return said  _No_ .

“He’s going to the Japan Expo as Natsu from Fairy Tail but he doesn’t wanna dye his hair pink,” Nino said, throwing his hand towards Adrien as if to say “This guy, he is _ridiculous_.”

“Aw, even though it’s already blond? You wouldn’t even have to bleach it!”

“That’s what I keep saying!”

“Guys,” said Marinette, emerging from the pillow of her crossed arms with eyes still heavy with sleep. Adrien turned to her hopefully. Marinette was always on his side, no matter what. Maybe she could convince them to stop pestering him.

“Yes, Marinette?” said Alya, when Marinette didn’t immediately follow up.

There was a short pause. Marinette blinked slowly, a tiny line forming between her eyebrows. Her fringe was all over the place, and Adrien could almost see the cogs turning in her head, forming the argument that would save him.

“Keep it down,” she finally sighed, before dropping her head back onto her arms.

Alya cackled.

Adrien pouted.

Nino reached up and dug a hand into Adrien’s hair, deliberately ruining his carefully crafted hairstyle, but Adrien wasn’t in the mood to defend it any more.

“Ugh, there’s so much hair spray in this.”

“It’s mousse.” Adrien grumbled.

“I thought mousse was only for curly hair,” Alya said, reaching over and touching Adrien’s hair herself.

Adrien shrugged. “I dunno, I just use whatever my hair stylist tells me to use.”

“Do you secretly have curly hair? Do you straighten it?” Nino wondered.

Alya’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, that would be…” she backed up and peered at him through the camera square of her fingers. “Weird,” she concluded.

“It would depend on how curly it was,” said Nino “Tight curls might be weird, unless you cut them really short. I can’t imagine you with short hair, though.”

“Waves could be cute. You could grow it and have surfer hair,” Alya speculated.

“My hair’s straight, guys,” Adrien told them. He knew he shouldn’t let them mess with his hair, but he didn’t want to come off as cold by pushing them away. Besides, he liked the fact that his friends felt close enough to him to mess with his hair. He didn’t even mind the sensation too much.

“How do you get it to do that flicky thing?” asked Alya.

“I used hair straighteners and a bit of mousse every morning, and then I comb it out a little so it doesn’t look wet. It only takes a few minutes once you get used to it.”

Nino muttered something along the lines of “worse than a girl” and was forced to duck when Alya tried to hit him with her textbook.

“It wouldn’t matter how much time and effort you spent on your hair,” she said, glaring at Nino before turning back to Adrien, “if you did it because you wanted to and not because your dad makes you.”

“Maybe he does.”

Marinette’s voice, slightly more awake than before, caught their attention. She met Adrien’s eyes with that frank, open look she gave him more and more often these days. “Do you like it like that?” she asked.

Adrien reached up and ran his fingers through his now-messy hair, pulling some of the strands back into place. “I guess? Sometimes the whole routine annoys me, especially when I’m tired. To be honest, I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Maybe you should just ‘forget’ one morning and see what happens?” Alya suggested.

“It’s happened before. My father sends me back upstairs and makes me do it properly. If he doesn’t see it, Nathalie does.”

Nino was stroking his chin in a way that made Adrien nervous. “So wait,” Nino said, “does this mean that if you wet your hair, it would dry in its natural state?”

Adrien’s eyes widened and he leaned away from Nino. “Don’t. I have a photo shoot this afternoon.”

“Couldn’t they just style it again?”

“That’s not…”

“C’mon Adrien, I’ve seen your style team,” Alya chimed in, and he knew he was doomed. “They wash your hair and restyle it before each shoot anyway.”

“Not always!”

“Yeah dude, it’s the perfect opportunity!” Nino chimed in, ignoring Adrien’s protest. “Your dad probably won’t even know!”

“How did this go from me dyeing my hair pink in two weeks to wetting it now?”

“It’s the concept of baby steps, Adrien,” Alya said in what might have been a kind, reassuring voice, if she hadn’t been grinning wolfishly at him. “Change can be hard, but sometimes, you just have to accept it.”

“No I don’t,” said Adrien.

“Guys, leave Adrien alone,” Marinette said, _finally_ coming to his defense. “It’s his hair. He doesn’t have to change it if he doesn’t want to.”

“Thank you, Marinette, _you_ are a very good friend,” Adrien said, shooting narrow-eyed glares at the other two as he leaned closer to Marinette over the table.

“You’re welcome,” she said, yawning.

Alya eyed them both, her grin turning devious. “Hey Adrien,” she said, as though changing the subject. “Have you ever seen Marinette with her hair down?”

“He has,” Marinette, sticking her tongue out at Alya as Adrien nodded.

“Oh,” said Alya, taken aback. There was a pause while she seemed to decide whether to ask for details, but for once she decided not to. “Well, wasn’t she pretty?” she asked instead.

Adrien nodded again, before catching Marinette’s blush in the corner of his eye. He smiled at her, and she glanced away, rose dusting her cheeks.

“I’ve only seen her hair loose once, when we were hanging out with Kagami. It was beautiful,” he said, watching her fondly. He turned his gaze back to Alya and Nino and found their eyes comically wide with identical looks of surprise. “What?” he asked.

Alya’s grin returned with far too many teeth. “How about this,” she said. “We’ll all go eat at Marinette’s today, and you can wash you hair there, if Marinette wears her hair loose all afternoon.”

Adrien blinked.

Marinette scoffed. “Like that’ll -”

“Deal,” said Adrien.

Marinette’s jaw dropped and she turned to him, eyes wide. “What?!”

“Unless you don’t want to,” Adrien hurriedly added, ignoring Alya and Nino’s hissed “yesss” and high five.

“It’s not that - it’s just -” Marinette’s hands made circles in the air, as though the motion might help her form a coherent sentence. “I-I mean, are you sure?”

Adrien shrugged. “It’s easier if it’s not just me,” he said. “That way  _I_ won’t be the center of attention…”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.”

“…you will,” he finished.

“Wait, what?”

Adrien chuckled at her puzzled frown. “You’re  _really_ pretty, Marinette,” he said, smiling. “Everyone’s going to notice if you leave your hair down.”

Marinette’s blush returned in full force, and she gaped at him for several seconds, before burying her face in her arms with a muttered “as if”.

—

Two hours later, Adrien found himself shirtless and bent over Marinette’s bathtub, holding the shower head awkwardly over his hair and trying not to get water all over the bathroom.

“It’s a good job I came in with you,” said Nino over the echo of rushing water. He took the shower head so Adrien could rinse his hair with both hands. “I can’t believe you’ve never done this before.”

“Why wash only your hair when you could just take a full shower?” Adrien reasoned, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to get the rest of the shampoo out.

“’Cause you don’t have time, or the boiler’s down and you don’t want a cold shower, or you had a shower already but got mayonnaise in your hair…?”

“I still don’t know how you manage to get food in your hair so often when it’s short and covered with your hat all the time.”

“It’s not my fault, I swear,” said Nino. “My hair just attracts food. That’s _why_ I keep my hat on all the time.”

“You could take it off during class,” Adrien said, reaching blindly for the towel Marinette had provided.

Nino gave it to him. “Nah, bro, you don’t know how bad it is. I take my hat off and boom - within five minutes, there’s food in it. It’s like a curse.”

The initial reason Nino had insisted on accompanying Adrien was because he didn’t trust him not to try and style his hair with the hair dryer.

“At least let me brush it!” Adrien complained, reaching for the brush lent by Marinette, which Nino was holding out of his reach.

“I’ll brush it.”

“Please, I hate other people brushing my hair!”

Nino gave him a puzzled frown, still holding the brush over their heads. “How do you deal with having it styled?”

“That’s why I style it myself every morning!”

Nino blinked, and his frown turned guilty. He lowered the brush, handing it to Adrien.

“Bro, you could’ve said so. I wouldn’t have asked you to do this.”

Adrien took the hair brush and reached up to scratch the back of his neck. The brush got in the way and he lowered it awkwardly.

“I don’t mind,” he said. “My hair stylist knows about it, and he lets me brush my own hair. Once all the knots are out, it’s fine.”

“You sure?” Concern was etched into Nino’s features, reminding Adrien of why they were best friends. Channeling Chat Noir, he slung an arm around Nino’s shoulder and pushed his wet hair into his friend’s face.

“Yeah, bro,” he said, grinning, while Nino cried out in protest and pushed him away. “Besides, I really wanted to see Marinette with her hair down again.”

Nino snorted, but didn’t comment.

—

Alya’s idea was unnecessary, but fun all the same. Adrien would borrow Nino’s hoodie to keep his hair covered until they got into class, and Marinette would only untie her hair at the last minute before they went in. They would then walk in and take their seats like nothing unusual was happening, and see who noticed.

The plan worked right up until they were in front of the classroom.

“Ready?” Adrien asked, glancing at Marinette with his hands on his hood.

Marinette smiled and raised her hands to her pigtails. “Ready.”

She pulled both pigtails free of their binds and shook her hair out, letting it drop over her shoulders like a sheet of dark silk. Adrien pulling the hood off his unstyled, messy hair was nowhere near as glamorous, and yet when Marinette looked back at him, her jaw dropped.

“Oh wow,” said Alya, who hadn’t seen him yet either. “You look just like Chat Noir, Adrien!”

Adrien’s heart plunged into his stomach like a rock into icy water.

“Uh, really?” he said, fiddling with his hair self-consciously as he tried to keep his voice at the right pitch.

“Huh, I guess he does,” said Nino, eyeing him thoughtfully. “I didn’t notice before, but now it’s nearly dry…”

“Marinette?” Alya poked her friend in the arm. Adrien snuck another glance at her from beneath his shaggy fringe. She was as pale as a porcelain doll.

“What’s the hold up?” A voice behind them made Adrien jump. Alix, Kim and Max stood there, waiting to enter the classroom.

“O-oh, sorry guys,” he mumbled, and followed Nino through the door. Alya had to push Marinette into class and guide her to her seat.

“Hey, what’s up with the hair and the hoodie? Are you cosplaying as, like, an urban Chat Noir?” Kim asked, reaching over his friends’ heads to ruffle Adrien’s hair. It seemed to be a popular activity today.

“I guess so. Marinette’s accompanying me,” he added in a lame attempt to draw attention away from himself.

Lame or not, it worked.

“Woah, Marinette, your hair’s down!” Alix exclaimed.

“Hey, I haven’t seen you like that in ages,” Kim added. “Not since Chloe put gum in your hair that one time.”

Before Adrien could ask what exactly Chloe had done and when, the girl in question walked in, saw Marinette, and stopped dead in her tracks. Sabrina bumped into her, but Chloe barely even noticed. She was staring at Marinette with the most un-Chloe-like look Adrien had ever seen on her face - something between shyness and awe.

“You okay there, Chloe?” he asked her.

Chloe blinked and shook her head as though coming to her senses, before turning her gaze to Adrien, but the greeting on her lips died as soon as she laid eyes on him.

“Adrikins!” she cried instead. “What happened? Who did this to you?!”

Adrien glanced over at Nino, who was hiding a grin behind his hand. “Chat Noir cosplay,” he blurted before his brain could catch up. Chloe’s lip curled in contempt.

“You could do so much better, Adrikins, but never mind that. I’ve got you the perfect pink wig for the Japan Expo!”

“Wait,” Nino interrupted. “You’re going with _Chloe?_ ”

Chloe shot a disdainful glare at Nino. “Of course he is,” she said. “Who do you think is going to be Lucy?”

Nino’s jaw dropped.

“And I’m going as Happy!” Sabrina squealed, jumping up and down behind Chloe. “I can’t wait!”

“I want photos,” Nino stage-whispered to Adrien.

“Of course, there’ll be plenty on my Instagram,” Chloe said, before shooting Nino another withering look and adding “Oh wait, you don’t have one.”

“I’m surprised you cared to look,” Nino shot back.

Madame Mendeliev chose that moment to enter the classroom and call them to order. Her sharp eyes took in Adrien’s hair, lingered for a second, then moved behind him to Marinette.

“Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng,” she said severely. “This is Chemistry, you know the rules. Hair up, now.”

The entire class groaned, including, Adrien was interested to note, Chloe (though she tried to disguise it as clearing her throat). He glanced back over his shoulder for one last look at his friend’s beautiful hair, and was surprised to find her watching him, too. The look in her eyes held none of her usual shyness, but instead seemed calculating and urgent. It was a look he’d seen many, many times before, in…

Her hair was back in its pigtails, and it clicked. Adrien’s eyes widened as everything suddenly fell into place.

“Monsieur Agreste,” Madame Mendeliev’s sharp tone had his head whipping to the front, but her reprimand and the giggles of his classmates flew right over his head. Adrien babbled a response that seemed somewhat satisfactory and leaned over his notes, still feeling the force of Ladybug’s gaze on the back of his neck for the rest of the lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this the fourth reveal in a row? Maybe. Am I done? Probably not.


	9. Day 9: Alternate Timeline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien sneaks some of his friends into his room to escape the summer heat, and they start talking about what life would be like if miraculouses didn't exist. Lots of oblivious pining and ambiguousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a scene I very briefly described at the beginning of A Breath Of Fresh Air, which is a Marichat fic I have on here, so if you want to know what happens next, check that out! :P

“This is the _life_ ,” Nino sighed, lying on his back directly under the air conditioning vent in Adrien’s bedroom.

Various murmurs of agreement arose from the surrounding floor. Adrien, having traded several of his superhero dolls against the blind eye of his bodyguard, had snuck eight of his friends into his room so they could escape the heatwave currently suffocating Paris. He sat against the back of his couch and grinned at the looks of utter bliss on their faces. He’d been there all morning, so he was nice and cool, but judging from the beads of sweat that rolled off Nino’s forehead and made a halo of shiny dark curls along Marinette’s hairline, the streets of Paris were a furnace right now.

Kim had gone straight to the bathroom and seemed to be taking a very long, cold shower. Occasionally they heard him tunelessly singing some kind of cartoon theme song. Nino, Alya, Alix, Max, Marinette and Kagami were sprawled out on the floor in various states of heat exhaustion, and Luka was sitting next to Adrien with a guitar over one knee, providing a lazy musical accompaniment. Luka seemed entirely unfazed by the heat, and if not for the sweat that clung to his t-shirt and mussed his hair even more than usual, Adrien might have thought he had some kind of magical immunity to it.

The song took on a slightly bittersweet tone, and Adrien glanced over at Luka to find him watching Marinette. Adrien followed his gaze and was surprised when her eyes met his. He smiled, and she flashed a smile back at him before glancing away, blushing - or perhaps it was just the heat. She seemed embarrassed at being caught, though, and Adrien suppressed a chuckle.

He wasn’t the only who had noticed, apparently.

“Whatcha thinking, Marinette?” Alya asked, elbowing her friend. Kagami, lying on Marinette’s other side between her and Adrien, opened her eyes and turned her head to listen.

“Nothing,” Marinette said, a little too quickly. Alya poked her again, and she sighed. “I guess I was thinking about… how things might be different if I’d made different choices, or if one small thing had happened differently, or…”

“Deep,” Alix croaked from somewhere near the girls’ feet. She cleared her throat and added, “How is your brain still working though?”

Alya snorted. “Marinette’s brain never stops.”

“It’s true,” Marinette agreed.

“What were you thinking about specifically?” Kagami asked.

Marinette’s smile looked slightly strained as her glance flickered between Kagami and Adrien. “Um, well, I was wondering what… how my life might be different if…” her eyes fled to the ceiling and her fingers twitched nervously.

Kagami placed her hand over Marinette’s in a gesture that brought her attention back to the other girl. Something passed between them, some secret they seemed to share, and Adrien suppressed a twinge of envy. (The guitar twanged a false note, and Luka muttered “oops” before starting again.)

Finally, Marinette sighed, smiled reassuringly at Kagami, squeezed her hand, and said, “I was wondering what it’d be like if miraculouses didn’t exist.”

A collective hum ran over the group as they contemplated the idea.

“Peaceful,” Luka murmured. “No Hawkmoth. No akumas.”

“No Ladybug or Chat Noir either,” Alya pointed out. “They’d just be normal civilians, living out their lives like the rest of us.”

Adrien frowned. He couldn’t imagine what his life without Ladybug. There had been a before Ladybug, and an after, and the after was infinitely better than the before. Of course, part of that was due to the fact that his meeting with Ladybug had coincided with him starting school. If miraculouses didn’t exist, he’d still be going to school, still have met Nino and Alya and Marinette and the others… but would he even have dared to be himself around them, or rebel against his father like he was now, if he’d never met Plagg and become Chat Noir?

“No Ladyblog,” Nino added, interrupting Adrien’s thoughts. “You’d have to find a different obsession to risk your life over every day.”

Alya aimed a half-hearted kick at her boyfriend and pouted. Nino snickered.

“We might not be together,” Alya retorted. “Ladybug wouldn’t have locked us up in that panther enclosure.”

“We might have gotten together anyway,” Nino said, turning onto his side and throwing an arm over Alya’s stomach.

Alya smirked. “I dunno, I think I went a little crazy in that cage,” she teased, and it was Nino’s turn to pout.

“Given your personalities and compatibility, the chances you would have gotten together at some point anyway are more or less ninety per cent,” Max commented from the far side of the group.

“You calculate love compatibilities now?” asked Alix with a grin in her voice.

“I can only do it with established couples,” Max replied. “Kim and Ondine, for instance probably wouldn’t be together. Ondine is too shy and Kim is too dense. She’d probably have given up on him by now.”

Alix and Alya snickered.

“I’d have so much more free time,” Marinette breathed, gazing wonderingly up at the ceiling.

There was a quiet moment during which Adrien wondered why Marinette thought it would make much of a difference to her - she hadn’t been caught up in  _that_ many akumas - but he guessed that with as many hobbies and responsibilities as she had, even a small amount of extra time would be valuable to Marinette.

“We’d never have gone to space in the Startrain,” Nino said. “Or seen Big Ben from right up close.”

“We’d be different people,” Alya said. “People who’ve never been akumatized, or…”

_Become heroes_ . Adrien heard the words as though she’d said them. Luka’s song turned melancholy for a few bars, and it occurred to him that the temporary heroes whose identities had been exposed would probably never get to wear their miraculouses - or see their kwamis - again.

“You’re right,” Marinette said quietly. “I’d be a completely different person.”

Alya turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

Marinette’s mouth twisted in search of the right words. “I stood up to Chloe that first time because I was inspired by you and Ladybug,” she finally admitted. “And I started looking out for people more because I didn’t want them to become akumatized. I’d still be pretty shy and self-absorbed if there were no superheroes or supervillains. It made me grow up a little.”

Various noises of protest arose from the floor.

“Bullshit,” Alix snorted. “You’ve always been a goodie two shoes. That’s why Chloe hates you, you make her look bad.”

“You’d have stood up to her eventually, under my good influence,” Alya said.

“I’ve known you since Maternelle, ‘Ninette,” Nino added, before Marinette interrupted:

“Hey, I thought we’d agreed you couldn’t call me that any more.”

“What’s this? You had a pet name for Marinette?” Alya turned to look at Nino, eyes narrowed dangerously over her smile.

“Not like _that_! We used to pretend we were siblings,” Nino explained hurriedly. “Until I got a little brother, that is.”

“The ultimate betrayal,” Marinette said. “You abandoned me.”

“I can’t help what my parents did!”

Adrien was surprised. He’d always been under the impression that Nino and Marinette were just classmates, not that close. Especially since Nino had had a crush on her at one point.

“So you guys were childhood friends?” Adrien asked.

“More like childhood rivals,” said Marinette, smiling fondly. “You never did beat my high score.”

“On fighting games,” Nino said, propping himself up on his elbow so he could lean over Alya and poke Marinette in the arm. “ _You_ never beat _me_ in any racers!”

Marinette giggled and stuck her tongue out at him, and Nino made a face at her before lying back on the floor.

“My _point_ , before I was _rudely_ interrupted,” he said, “was that you’ve always been cool. Remember that time in CM1 when I lost my lunch money for the whole week and you let me come eat at your place?”

“That’s normal,” Marinette said.

“Or that time Kim fell out of a tree and broke his leg and you stayed with him and held his hand until the ambulance came?” Alix added.

“You helped me test my very first computer program on Basic,” Max remembered. “Nobody else was interested.”

“Their loss,” said Marinette, though she was blushing again, and her smile was back.

The music became happier and more nostalgic, except for one small inflection every few bars. Adrien glanced over at Luka to find that Luka was looking at him now.

“Why the B minor?” Adrien asked quietly.

“You tell me,” the older boy replied with a smile. Adrien blinked, his eyes sweeping over his friends as they reminisced about school days he’d never experienced.

_Oh._

“Sometimes I wish I’d grown up with them, too,” he murmured to Luka.

“I know what you mean,” Kagami said. Adrien hadn’t realized she was listening, her head still turned towards Marinette, who was giggling at something Alix was saying. Kagami reached a hand out to him and he caught it, but for once, sharing their loneliness didn’t make it any less painful.

Not for the first time, Adrien wondered what his life would have been like if he’d been allowed to go to public school at the same time as everyone else. Would he find it easier to read people by now? Would Nino still have wanted to be friends with him if they’d met in Maternelle? Would Marinette? And if so, would Adrien still have been friends with Chloe, knowing how she treated other people, or would Chloe have grown up with no friends at all until she met Sabrina in collège?

Probably not. Adrien’s parents were friends with the Bourgeois family; Adrien hadn’t really had a choice. In which case, would Nino and Marinette have befriended him despite that? Adrien wasn’t sure he’d have approached them at that age. He might not even have dared speak to Marinette again after the gum incident, had he not gained courage from becoming Chat Noir, and that had been less than a year ago. Would Marinette have forgiven him at all?

Maybe not straight away, he thought, but she would have eventually. Marinette always ended up finding the truth out somehow. It was one of the things he’d always admired about her. And there was so much to admire about Marinette that Adrien would definitely have wanted to become her friend. In fact, if there were no miraculouses and he’d never met Ladybug…

Almost as if their minds were somehow linked, Marinette chose that moment to meet his eyes again. He saw hers widen fractionally before he tore his away, swallowing against the sudden guilt in his throat. He’d been staring at her.

Kagami’s fingers burned his skin like a brand, making his hands sweat despite the air conditioning. He’d changed targets, he’d made his choice.  _Marinette’s_ choice was sitting right next to him.

Luka’s song paused, and Adrien glanced up at him, irrationally worried that he’d know what Adrien was thinking, but Luka was just taking a sip of iced tea. He turned to Adrien with a smile.

“You are, though,” he said.

Adrien smiled nervously. “I am what?”

“You are growing up with us,” Luka clarified. “We’re still young. Everything can still change, and it will. You have plenty of time to make memories with all of us.”

Adrien glanced back at Marinette. She was staring at the ceiling, her expression somewhere between contemplative and wistful, and Adrien’s breath caught with how beautiful she was right then.

It didn’t have to mean anything, that he thought his friend was beautiful and wanted to spend time with her. That she made his breath catch and his heart stutter, or that his eyes gravitated towards her more than anyone else. It just meant he admired her. As a friend. His beautiful, kind, sassy, talented, amazing friend.

Plagg must be getting to him.

“Yeah,” Adrien said, barely knowing what they were talking about any more. “I guess you’re right.”

When Nathalie found them later on, dozing in a pile under the air conditioning, Adrien woke from a strange and pleasant dream to find that the arm he’d thrown over Kagami had somehow latched around Marinette’s waist as well. He snatched it back before anyone could notice, the remnants of his dream reflected in her sleeping face.

Being grounded for the rest of the summer was almost a relief.


	10. Day 10: Charm Bracelets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien breaks his charm bracelet, and Marinette re-makes it. As thanks, Adrien makes Marinette another charm bracelet. Then it gets a little competitive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first ever attempt to switch POVs in the same chapter, so please let me know if it's confusing!

Adrien hadn’t meant for this to happen. He hadn’t meant to ignite Marinette’s competitive spirit, nor had he meant to get swept away by it himself. Honestly, all he’d wanted was to make her a better charm bracelet.

It all started when his own bracelet broke. They were playing five-a-side football against the girls in the park, and getting absolutely thrashed, mainly because Adrien didn’t know the rules and Ivan, who was supposed to be the goalie, kept dodging the ball. Adrien threw himself in front of the goal in what he hoped was a spectacular save, but forgot that  _he_ wasn’t supposed to catch the ball with his hands. It bounced painfully off his wrist, and the bracelet fell away with it. 

Adrien ignored the girls’ howls of laughter and Kim’s load groans, and gathered the remains of the bracelet from where they were scattered in the grass. The red string was broken, the end frayed, and one of the beads was split clean in two.

“You okay, bro?” Nino called.

Adrien raised his free hand to signal that he needed a minute, and jogged to the edge of their makeshift playing field, where Nathaniel (who didn’t like football) and Marinette (who was banned from playing for some reason) sat with their sketchbooks.

Marinette saw Adrien approach and snapped her sketchbook shut before he could glimpse what - or who - she’d been sketching. (Him. It was him.) Nathaniel let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a snort, but she ignored him, smiling brightly at her crush. Adrien wasn’t smiling, though.

“Hey, Marinette,” he said glumly, dropping to a crouch in front of her. “I broke the lucky charm you gave me. I shouldn’t have been wearing it to play football, I’m so sorry.”

Marinette blinked several times, surprised and touched that he’d been so attached to it. She wanted to kiss away the sorrow etched in his features, but that wasn’t an appropriate response. Instead, she picked the broken thread and beads out of his palm - her fingers tingling as they brushed his - and examined them.

“I could make you another, if you want?” she suggested.

Adrien’s face brightened, like clouds parting for the sun. “Really? You’d do that?”

Marinette smiled shyly. “S-sure,” she said. “It wouldn’t take long. I still have some of that red string at home, and I’m pretty sure I can find a replacement bead for the one that’s broken.”

Adrien cupped her hand with the beads in it in both of his and gushed several thank yous, while giving her a smile that turned her brain to sparkly mush. Then he jumped up and skipped back to the game, where he proceeded to score three own goals, to Kim’s dismay.

The next day, Marinette rushed into class, late as usual, and threw a paper bag on top of Adrien’s tablet as she scrambled to her desk.

“Sorry, sorry!” she hissed, to him or to Madame Bustier, he wasn’t sure. Adrien took a peek into the bag and saw a box the size of approximately six macarons, and his bracelet, as good as new. He spun around, grinning, somehow mouthed a “thank you!!!!!” followed by exactly that number of exclamation points even though it was silent, and immediately put the charm bracelet on his wrist.

Marinette got in trouble for not paying attention.

At break time, Adrien was happily tucking into his passionfruit macarons (which he refused to share, to Nino’s surprise) when a flash of blue and orange caught his eye. He found himself grinning: Marinette was wearing his lucky charm today as well. He’d rarely seen her wearing it, and had wondered if perhaps she didn’t like his handmade gift. As he looked closer, though, he frowned. The bracelet hung loosely off her wrist, and the gaps between the beads were awkwardly made. It looked like something a five-year-old might have made for their mother. Adrien swallowed a suddenly tasteless bit of macaron. No wonder she hardly ever wore it - every time she lowered her arm, the bracelet almost slid right off her wrist.

Adrien glanced down at his own be-charmed wrist. How had Marinette made the charm so well? It fit his wrist exactly. Had she used her own wrist as a guide?

An idea came to Adrien then, and with it, steely determination. Marinette had made him two charm bracelets (albeit with mostly the same beads but never mind that). She deserved another bracelet as well. Adrien was sure he still had some of that red string from the first one he’d made her, and the beads he’d chosen had come in a packet full of many others. And this time, he’d do some research beforehand.

The next day, as Marinette threw herself breathlessly onto the bench behind him, Adrien turned and slid a clumsily wrapped paper package across her desk.

“W-wha…? Adrien?” she stammered, still gasping from her run through the school.

“It’s to say thanks for re-making my bracelet,” he said. “I hope it fits better than the other one.” This he added bashfully, one hand rubbing his neck, even though he’d carefully rehearsed exactly what to tell her.

“Oh! That’s - but you didn’t have t-”

“Agreste, Adrien!” called Madame Bustier, pointedly.

“Uh, present!” Adrien whipped round to the front so fast he almost cricked his neck, and some of the class snickered. Behind him, Marinette opened her gift and found another charm bracelet, in the same colours as the first on he’d given her, but far better made, with an _adjustable knotted clasp_. Huh. That was clever. She wondered why he’d thought to put that on. Possibly because he didn’t know her wrist size… unless… she craned her neck, trying to see his wrist, but it was in front of him, and…

“…’nette? Marinette?”

“Marinette,” Alya hissed, poking her sharply in the ribs.

“P-p-present!” Marinette yelped.

As the class erupted into giggles, Marinette sank, red-faced, into her jacket. Shooting a silent thank you to Alya, she decided that when she got home, she’d make another charm bracelet for Adrien, with an adjustable clasp. Just in case.

The next day, Adrien received the his second (or third, depending on how you counted) charm bracelet with as much bemusement as delight.

“I thought, maybe, in case the other one didn’t fit right, and that’s why it broke…”

“That’s not why, but thanks Marinette!” Adrien said, grinning widely. “Now I’ll be twice as lucky!”

He noticed that the beads were different colours this time, and wondered if Marinette would like another bracelet. She was a young fashionista, after all, and it couldn’t help to have more than one, for colour coordination purposes.

Marinette received a purple-and-yellow bracelet the next day despite her sputtered protests, followed by hasty reassurances that of  _course_ she loved it, but now she had three and Adrien only had two and…

Adrien’s next bracelet was grey and yellow, because she’d heard him arguing with Nino that Batman was better than Superman if only for the aesthetic. It was Friday, and Marinette hoped he’d forget about the whole thing over the weekend.

She was wrong. Adrien brought in no less than three different charm bracelets, in different colour combinations.

“I might’ve gotten carried away,” Adrien admitted, smiling in that disarming way of his that made sure she would never, ever be capable of refusing him. “Making bracelets is kinda fun.”

“You realize this means I have to make you three more?” said Marinette, who was getting used to talking to him by this point.

“No you don’t!” Adrien held his hands up appeasingly. “I just did it because I wanted to.”

“Nuh-uh, Sunshine, this is _Marinette_ we’re talking about,” Alya said, leaning over as though about to impart important wisdom, but Marinette shushed her.

“It’s fine,” she said, and Adrien thought that meant there’d be no more bracelets.

Marinette brought in five more bracelets the next day.

“I was going to do three, but then I saw that one of yours was Ladybug-themed, so I got the idea to do a Chat Noir one for you, and I didn’t want to leave it at four because that’s an unlucky number - I mean it is in my house, I mean in my culture, I mean in Chinese culture, I mean…”

“I know what you mean,” Adrien said, because he’d been taking Mandarin for several years now and Chinese culture was part of the lesson plan. An odd thrill had run through him at the sight of the green-and-black charm with the black cat bead in the middle, and he grinned. “So, Everyday Ladybug, do I get to make you two more?”

Marinette gaped at him. Adrien laughed.

By the end of the second week, even Adrien had to admit that it had gotten a little out of hand.

“This has gotten _way_ out of hand,” Nino said, staring at Adrien’s forearms, now entirely covered in lucky charm bracelets. “If she makes you any more, you’ll have to start wearing them around your ankles.”

Adrien, who had been wondering where he’d put the next batch of gifts, raised his eyebrows in interest.

“Bro,” said Nino. “I’m kidding. This has got to stop.”

“But she just gave me three more!” Adrien whined. “If I don’t match that, she wins!”

“Since when is this a competition?”

“It was always a competition,” Alya commented from behind them. Marinette was oddly silent. Adrien turned to look at her and gasped.

“Are you making _another bracelet?_ ” Nino accused.

“N-no! I mean, yes! But-”

“What is the meaning of this?” Madame Mendeliev, who could be eerily silent on her feet when she wanted to be, was looming over their desk. “Is this a game? Are you trying to see who can become the next lab disaster? _Get those bracelets off right now!_ ”

The entire class watched with bated breath as Marinette and Adrien both shrunk under their teacher’s glare. Adrien fumbled with his bracelets, slipping them onto the desk one by one. A light clicking from behind him indicated that Marinette was doing the same. As their beaded piles grew, both teens reflected that perhaps their little gift exchange had indeed gotten out of hand.

Marinette was struggling with her second-to-last bracelet, which had somehow knotted itself too tight. She tugged and tugged at it until it suddenly loosened, jerking her elbow back into her school bag. Her open school bag, with the open packet of a few hundred beads in it.

Marinette watched the disaster unfold in slow motion, unable to do anything about it. She watched as her school bag fell off the table and onto the tiled floor. She watched it bounce shut, then open again, and she watched as hundreds of beads spilled out in a colourful, clattering wave, instantly scattering to every nook and cranny of the lab.

There was a moment of stunned silence as the beads slowed their momentum.

“Detention,” Mme Mendeliev growled through gritted teeth. “You will pick all of these up now and give them and the bracelets to me. And you’ll have detention after school today, and only after that will you get them back. I do not want to see another bead in my laboratory every again.”

Somehow Adrien didn’t dare mention that he had fencing practice that evening. Nathalie and even his father seemed less intimidating that Mme Mendeliev in that moment.

The class banded together and managed to pick up most of the beads in surprisingly little time. Marinette, mumbling apologies to everyone as she put them all back in their packet, noticed a particularly grumpy-looking Alix hand what looked like several ten euro notes to a particularly smug-looking Max. She wondered whether they’d bet on her dropping the beads or getting them confiscated. In retrospect, both seemed likely.

“How does detention work?” Adrien whispered to her as he poured beads from his hands into the packet.

“Um, you just stay behind after school for an hour and do homework in silence,” Marinette whispered back. A warm, giddy hum rose in her heart. It wasn’t ideal, and of course the whole bracelet thing seemed a bit ridiculous now, but…

_She was going to have detention with Adrien!_


	11. Day : Video Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette and Adrien are stuck in a zombie game without their kwamis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My original intent was for this to be funny, at least a little bit, but then it got all angsty on me. It has a happy ending though, I promise.
> 
> TW: horror setting, zombies, panic attacks, dissociation / out-of-body experience. Descriptions of jumpscares. No gore, no explicit descriptions of the zombies.

Marinette hated repeat akumas. They were almost always far worse than their previous versions, and Gamer 3.0 was no exception. Being trapped in a video game with Chat Noir and forced to play their way out was one thing; being trapped in a  _zombie_ game with _Adrien_ and  _without Tikki_ was several levels of XP beyond her pay grade.

_I_ should _get paid for this_ , she had thought in the beginning, before terror had entirely overwhelmed her senses.

“I s-sure hope L-Ladybug shows up s-soon,” Adrien was whispering, sounding almost as scared as she was. He had one arm around her shoulders, bless him, and the other hand splayed between her pigtails, pressing her tightly against his chest, from which his heart seemed to be trying to escape. Somewhere beyond the jumpscare-induced adrenaline that laced her blood and numbed her brain, Marinette recognized that in any other circumstances, she would have been ecstatic.

“Hihihihihi,” she tittered quietly into the cotton of his t-shirt, more from nerves than appreciation of the irony of the situation. Marinette didn’t appreciate much of anything right now. She was too busy trying not to have a heart attack.

“M-Marinette? I know you’re b-bad with horror, b-but we n-need to get out of here,” Adrien murmured, ducking his head to meet her eyes. His were wide, pupils tiny even in the dark. “D-Do you think you can stand?”

Marinette, who had been silently praying any kwami who might hear for Chat Noir to suddenly appear and save her, bit her trembling lip and nodded. They were hidden in a bathroom on the ground floor of an abandoned house in the woods, classic horror setting. Outside the door and window, low groans and rattling snarls could be heard. Adrien slowly rose from the floor, pulling Marinette bodily up with him, as she tried to force her legs to support her weight. As soon as they were upright, something threw itself at the window, screeching raspily and making them both jump, biting back screams. They’d learned early on that noise drew more of them.

The creature thumped erratically at the window for a few seconds, then abandoned it with a groan. Panting into Adrien’s shirt as silently as she possibly could, Marinette glanced upwards and saw Adrien, pale as moonlight, biting down on his own fist to stifle a whimper. Reluctantly releasing a fistful of shirt, she raised her hand slowly to his, and pulled it away from his mouth, bringing it down to look at.

“They can smell blood,” she reminded him quietly, running a thumb over the deep tooth marks he’d left in his own skin. There was no saliva on his hand at all. His mouth was as dry as hers.

He nodded stiffly, eyes still riveted on the window. His heart was thumping so hard and fast against his ribcage that, pressed against him as she was, she could feel it echo through her entire body, rivaling her own. It wasn’t pleasant. Marinette wondered how often people died of shock, and whether her miraculous cure - should she survive long enough to get back to Tikki - could bring people back to life if their death wasn’t a direct result of the akuma. If this kept up, at least one of them would be dead before they even left the bathroom.

The thought of having to go out there alone - or, worse, of leaving  _him_ alone - woke her brain to a razor-sharp rationality she didn’t know she could possess while simultaneously being scared senseless. Marinette turned her head to search the room, hoping an idea might pop out at her. Adrien’s arms clenched reflexively around her as she moved, his grip loosening with a muttered apology. The hand he’d bitten had wound itself around hers, all cold sweat and tight trembles, and he was breathing way too fast. Adrien had been putting on a brave face for the past hour, but the more they advanced in the game, and the longer Ladybug took to show up, the more obvious it became that Adrien wasn’t good with horror either. The accumulated adrenaline of protecting her and pretending it wasn’t getting to him, was catching up to him.

It was time for Marinette to take charge. Really, she ought to have done so from the start. She was Ladybug, with or without the suit. She shouldn’t be depending on a civilian to protect her from akumas, no matter how chivalrous said civilian was. Steely determination made an uneasy truce with terror. Both wanted to get her out of there alive, after all.

“Can I see the clues again?” Marinette whispered, feeling Adrien jump a little at the sound, or her breath on his cheek as she looked up at him, perhaps. He closed his mouth, swallowed hard, and nodded jerkily, untangling his hand from hers in order to fish three crumpled envelopes from the pocket inside his shirt. Marinette, huddled in the shelter of his arm, opened the first, upon which the return address was a dodgy-sounding laboratory in Switzerland. It held a single scrap of paper, torn from a report of some sort, most of which was blacked out. Only the words “blood-borne contagion” and “hive-mind” were unbarred. The second scrap was a page torn from the end of Sleeping Beauty, where the prince kissed the princess and she woke up. The princess in the illustration, despite being awake and smiling, was eerily pale, as though undead rather than brought back to life. Their smiles showed too many teeth.

The third, and most confusing of the three, was a newspaper article with her - well, Ladybug’s - smiling face on it. The title was “LADYBUG SAVES PARIS FROM ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!”, with a few details of her battle against Zombisou. Except that these zombies were nothing like the kissing zombies she’d fought then. They were more classically inspired, and a thousand times more terrifying. Marinette had seen more gore in the last hour than in her entire life before that.

She scanned the room again. Her gaze landed on the window, and the stretch of moonlight that shone from it onto the wall next to the bathtub.

“I have an idea,” she whispered to Adrien, stuffing two of the clues into her pocket and gently peeling his arms off her. He looked at her numbly, wrenching his eyes from the window for the first time in minutes. “This might attract another zombie to the window, so try not to scream, okay?” Marinette instructed. Adrien nodded.

Marinette took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly. Then, moving as quietly as possible, she leaned over the bathtub and held the lab report up to the light. Sure enough, the light shone through the barred sections, revealing the faint outline of concealed letters.

“Contagion by saliva… slower onset… two hours…” she murmured, squinting. She leaned a little further into the moonlight, trying to get her face closer to the backlit paper. “Queen… hive-mind… challenge? What does-” her sentence ended in a muffled squeak as she slipped, banging her head and elbow against the bathtub.

Immediately a zombie smashed itself into the window again. Marinette felt a pair of hands pulling her out of the tub and away from the window, backing up until they were against the door, which suddenly thumped against their backs as a second monster slashed sharp nails against the wood. Adrien jumped away from the door as well, dragging Marinette with him and shaking like a leaf. Marinette wasn’t sure whether he was holding her to protect her or as a human shield at this point; possibly both. She couldn’t blame him.

The sounds of attack died down once more, and both teenagers started breathing again, fast and shallow. A cold drop hit Marinette’s hand, making her jump, and she glanced up to see his cheeks glistening, eyes desperate. Adrien was losing it.

Something deep inside Marinette’s stomach hardened, steadying her, though her hand still shook as she wiped tears from his cheek. He grabbed it, eyes darting from the door to her face. Marinette set her jaw and forced her lips to form a grim smile. It was her turn to put the brave face on.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “I know what to do.”

Adrien nodded, the tiny spark of hope in his eyes solidifying Marinette’s resolve. Her plan was simple: contaminate herself using the vial of zombie saliva they’d picked up in the lab, (it had been glowing blue, which meant it could be useful) join the hive-mind, and, while her critical thinking was still intact, challenge the Queen’s position and take over, paralyzing her and all the other zombies and giving Adrien time to reach the check point in the underground lab, past the final boss, which would theoretically allow him to leave the game.

Adrien’s eyes grew even wider as she explained, and he gripped her shoulders and shook his head frantically, lips pressed together in a thin line. He opened them to protest, his voice high and barely audible: “No no no no no, no way, I can’t let you do this Marinette it’s insane, you might _literally die_ and I don’t even know if Ladybug’s out there or caught in here, she might already be infected and I don’t think Chat Noir can get us out of this one on his own -”

“We have to, Adrien, we have no other choice!” she hissed. “Besides, Chat Noir can definitely do this, I trust him.” Adrien’s babbling stuttered to a halt as Marinette raised both hands to her earrings, removing them. She took one of his hands from her shoulder and turned it palm up, dropping the earrings into them. They turned red, save for the black spots. “You have to find Chat Noir and give him these,” she whispered, knowing this was the most dangerous thing she’d ever done. “Take him where we were when we got sucked into the game, and tell him to find Tikki. He’ll know what to do.”

She watched Adrien from beneath her fringe, waiting for confusion or understanding or something, but as he stared at the earrings in his hand, Adrien paled even further, and he looked somehow even more terrified than before.

“Y-you…”

“Take them to Chat Noir,” Marinette repeated, but Adrien shook his head.

“Y-you don’t understand,” he said, voice trembling. “Marinette…” the words seemed to dry up in his throat, and he brought up his other hand, the one that held his signet ring. He slid the ring off, careful not to drop the earrings, and it turned black with a glowing green paw print in the middle.

Marinette felt the blood drain from her face. Adrien must have seen it, too, because he quickly hooked one arm around her just before her legs gave out, guiding her body slowly to the floor. Exactly the way they’d been ten minutes earlier. Only now everything was completely different. Now Marinette knew that Chat Noir couldn’t save her, because he was trapped right there with her.

“I’m sorry Marinette,” Adrien whispered with tears in his voice. “P-Plagg got left behind, too. I-I don’t know how to get us out of this one.” His hands dropped from her sides, limp and hopeless in his lap, and his face fell. Marinette had never seen him like this, as Adrien or as Chat Noir, and through the strange new cloud of numbness that had her floating somewhere above her position on the floor, she noticed that far below, her heart was breaking.

The aforementioned cloud, useful as it was in numbing the fear and despair, was difficult to think through. It was hard to find the  _motivation_ to think, never mind form a plan. Marinette’s body moved on its own, her hands cupping Adrien’s. She watched her fingers pick up her earrings and put them back in her ears. And then, in a flash of pink light, she watched a miracle appear.

Marinette’s consciousness slammed back into her body with all the force of a speeding truck. She blinked as the pink light faded, barely even jumping as another zombie attacked the window. A tiny red blur crashed into Marinette’s cheek, sobbing incoherently, and Marinette’s hands automatically cupped themselves against it.

“T-Tikki?!”

“Marinette!” Tikki cried. “Plagg and I had to watch you and the other people on the big TV thing and we couldn’t do anything and I th-thought you were going to _die_ already and -”

Marinette murmured nonsense reassurances, her mind and heart racing too fast to follow.

“Adrien!” Tikki suddenly zoomed out of her hands to face Marinette’s friend and (apparently) partner. “You have to relinquish your miraculous and then put it back on to get Plagg back!”

Adrien blinked several times, eyes flickering from Tikki to the already-relinquished ring in his palm. He slid it back onto his finger, curling his hand possessively over it, and a green light shot out of it, revealing Plagg.

“ _Finally!_ ” Plagg hissed, zooming to Adrien’s cheek and headbutting it aggressively several times. Adrien’s face crumpled as he hugged his kwami to him, accepting the heatbutts as the signs of affection they apparently were.

Marinette felt a giggle build in her chest, and covered her mouth to stifle it. Her fingers found tears on her cheeks, too. Adrien looked up at her, a wavering, tentative smile on his face.

“Think we can do this now, M’lady?” he asked hoarsely.

An odd thrill went through her sound of her nickname, one that had nothing whatsoever to do with fear. Firework sparks of excitement and hope and other emotions she didn’t have the time to analyze.

Marinette nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

Shakily, they helped each other up. His hand squeezed hers, and she squeezed back. They weren’t just a pair of civilians any more: they were a superhero duo, and they were about to cheat code their way out of this game.

“Ready?” Adrien asked,

“Ready,” said Marinette.

“Claws out!”

“Spots on!”


	12. Day 12: Piano lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien teaches Marinette to play the piano and discovers that she's a natural at it, unlike him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another 2K+ word low tension fic? Sure, brain, go off.
> 
> I finished this today (I usually finish the night before and edit before posting the next morning) so it's a bit more rushed than the previous ones. Editing was cursory at best, so please forgive any mistakes! (Tell me if you find any coherence ones, especially regarding music. I have like four years of classical training from nearly 20 years ago and none of it included piano lessons.)

It was Skills Week at Collège Françoise Dupont, and this year the objective was to teach one other person in the class a new skill. The aim was to spend at least an hour a day learning each skill, and for each new learner to demonstrate those skills in front of the class on the last day, Friday. The two hours of teaching and learning were taken out of afternoon school time, and the class was abuzz with excitement on Monday morning. Names had been pulled out of Nino’s hat, and Adrien was thrilled to find that he’d gotten Marinette.

He’d always wanted to learn how to sew, just like his father. However, after a freak accident with a sewing machine at the age of four which had left him mostly unharmed but ended with his first and only buzzcut, Adrien’s parents had more or less banned them from the house - save for the one in his father’s studio, which was later moved to the attic. The parallel with Sleeping Beauty was not lost on young Adrien, and for years he’d been terrified of even touching a sewing machine, in case he pricked his finger and fell asleep for a hundred years. Neither of his parents did anything to convince him this wouldn’t happen, and it was only an embarrassing number of years later that Adrien realized his childhood fear was somewhat ridiculous. He’d been feeling cheated since this realization, which was why he was so happy to have pulled Marinette’s name out of the hat.

Until Nino shattered that dream in one sentence.

“Uh, bro,” Nino said, having listened to the whole story and wearing what the rest of the class recognized as his Adrien’s-being-adorably-dumb-again-and-I-wanna-laugh-but-I-don’t-wanna-hurt-his-feelings face. (It was a perfectly straight face, save for the odd twitch, often punctuated by Alya stifling giggles in the background.)

“Bro, I hate to break it to you,” Nino said, “but the person you pulled out of the hat is the person _you’re_ going to teach this week.”

Adrien’s face fell, and Nino, looking entirely serious and blinking far more than necessary, put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Hey, maybe the person who got you can sew,” he said. Adrien perked up, but only a little. He doubted anyone could teach him sewing better than the future designer who sat behind him.

It turned out the person who’d pulled Adrien’s name out of the hat was Juleka, who could not sew, but she did offer to teach Adrien how to play bass. After a short conversation during which Marinette only stuttered once, they agreed Adrien would teach her to play the piano. They could go to the Liberty for both of those activities, and it was the only one of Adrien’s extra-curriculars that Marinette had no experience in. The prospect of spending two hours a day on the Liberty with his friends cheered Adrien up considerably.

Marinette’s first piano lesson, however, was mostly a disaster.

“I’m sorry, Adrien,” she sighed. “I’m so bad at this!”

“That’s okay,” said Adrien, whose patience with Marinette was infinite (and who hoped maybe she’d still agree to teach him sewing at some point). “It’s difficult for everyone at first. Let’s do the G Major scale again.”

“Um,” said Juleka, who was sitting to one side with Nathaniel and a new sketch book. The pair had been watching them struggle for forty long minutes. “Does she really have to know how to read music for this?”

Adrien blinked. He’d been learning music theory for as long as he’d been learning the piano, and had always assumed the two were inextricable. However, Juleka had mentioned earlier that she’d never taken a lesson in solfège in her life.

“Is it possible to do without?” he asked her.

“Sure,” Juleka said. “Just teach her the way I taught you. Play something simple and get her to copy it.”

Rose, who was sitting a little further off with Max, learning how to code, added in a sing-song voice, “Marinette has perfect pitch!”

Adrien’s eyes widened like saucers, and he whipped his head back to Marinette. “You have  _perfect pitch?_ ” he gasped.

Marinette flushed and pouted in Rose’s direction. Rose giggled.

“Marinette, give me an A,” Juleka said, a tiny smirk playing on her purple lips.

Marinette grumbled something incoherent, shot Adrien a nervous glance, took a deep breath, and sang: “Laaaaaa.”

Adrien pressed the appropriate key on the piano. She’d gotten it right.

“Marinette,” said Adrien, “have you _any idea_ how valuable perfect pitch is when you play an instrument?”

_Have you any idea how jealous I am right now?_ He thought, feeling only slightly jealous because he was mostly very excited.

Marinette’s blush deepened.

“We keep telling her she should learn something,” said Rose. “She won’t listen.”

“I have too much other stuff to do!” Marinette protested. “Besides, I did choose piano this week! And see, I’m terrible at it!”

“I think maybe I’ve been teaching you the wrong way,” Adrien said, trying to pretend he wasn’t absolutely delighted with this turn of events. Perfect pitch or not, it was too early to celebrate. “Let’s try what Juleka suggested. I’ll play something, and you try to copy it.”

He played a few scales, and found that she copied far better than she read music. They progressed to simple tunes, and by the end of the lesson, Marinette had learned four nursery rhymes.

Adrien was overjoyed.

The next lesson was far more relaxed, and Adrien slowly introduced Marinette to the notion of chords and harmonies.

“It’s harder to hear the different notes,” she complained. “I can figure it out if there’s only two, but when there are three it gets too difficult.”

“Are you kidding?” said Adrien, who had been looking forward to teaching Marinette more than learning bass from Juleka and was in an excellent mood. “Instantly knowing which two notes it is and being able to find them by instinct is a talent, Marinette. Most people have to work really hard to learn that, and it just comes naturally to you! You’re amazing!”

He threw his arms out to the sides in an attempt to demonstrate just how amazing she was. Marinette’s face could have rivaled Ladybug’s suit.

“N-no, I’m - I’m not - I mean, I - I mean, it’s -” she stammered, hands flailing. Rose giggled affectionately somewhere nearby.

“Marinette is multi-talented,” Luka commented from where he was painting his nails nearby.

Adrien, whose hopes for the end of the week had skyrocketed since yesterday, tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Marinette, if you could learn one song on the piano, what would it be?”

Marinette blinked, and glanced down at her hands resting on the keys. “I-I guess I’ve always loved Miraculous by Clara Nightingale. The acoustic cover’s so pretty. Oh, but I don’t think I could learn that by the Friday,” she added hurriedly.

Adrien grinned. He, of course, had a particular reason to like that song, quite apart from the fact that they’d all danced in the music video, but Marinette needn’t know about that.

“Let’s try it. It’s not as hard as you’d think, and I bet I could simplify the more difficult parts for you.”

Half an hour later, Marinette had the verse part down for each hand, and was working on coordinating both. Adrien had replaced the left hand chords with single notes for now, but he was almost certain Marinette would be able to manage the chords by Friday. It helped that she was ambidextrous.

The next two lessons passed quickly, and by Friday, Marinette had indeed mastered two-key versions of the chords - but not her nerves.

“We can always show that video Rose made of you playing, instead,” Adrien whispered to her in class, while Juleka told the class with quiet pride about the horror comic she’d drawn with Nathaniel’s help. Marinette was very pale, trembling in her seat. Adrien was a reluctant to replace her performance with a video - they’d brought the keyboard in especially, and Marinette’s performance would be better appreciated live. It wasn’t worth her having a panic attack over, though.

“See, this is why I don’t play an instrument,” she whined, high and fast. “I’m a terrible performer!”

“You’re the class president,” Adrien said. “You speak in front of the class all the time. This is just like that, only instead of reciting words, you’re reciting a song. With your fingers. Sort of.”

Alya, who was holding both of Marinette’s hands so she couldn’t chew on her fingernails, ducked her head to hide a smirk behind her hair.

“But what if I freeze up and forget?!” Marinette hissed, oblivious to Alya’s hilarity.

“It’s only in front of class,” Adrien pointed out. “You can afford to mess up. Heck, you can afford to play a few notes at first to see if they’re the right ones, and then start once you’ve found them. Since you’ve got a really good ear, once you’ve started, the rest will come easily.”

Marinette looked only slightly less nervous.

Adrien was called up next to play a Jagged Stone favourite on the Juleka’s bass. As he bowed to polite applause and made his way back to his seat, he passed Marinette and gave her a thumbs up. She sat in front of the keyboard they had plugged in earlier, checked the sustain pedal was easily accessible, and glanced nervously at the class before playing the first chord.

She froze. It was the wrong chord.

Adrien tried to catch her eye, but Marinette was staring at the piano in horror and growing more and more pale. Adrien began to worry she might actually faint.

“Um,” he murmured, leaning over his desk towards her, “was your right thumb on B flat?”

Adrien mentally thanked Madame Bustier for being understand about teachers intervening, and his past self for having the foresight to write the key names on the keys. Marinette glanced down at them and nodded.

“You start on E flat,” he said. “It looks similar but it’s further up.”

Marinette adjusted her hands on the keys, took a deep breath, and began.

She made no more mistakes. She kept the sustain pedal on the whole time - they’d have to work on that - and she did get progressively faster as she went on, but Adrien heard not a single false note.

When she’d finished the song, the class erupted in applause, and none were louder than him.

“You did it!” he cheered, practically bouncing around his desk to pull her out of her chair, where she still sat, stunned. “You did it, you played Miraculous in front of the whole class! I’m so proud of you!” He pulled her upright into a hug, quickly joined by the members of Kitty Section who had witnessed her progress.

“Alright, class, calm down,” Madame Bustier was saying, a smile in her voice. Adrien reluctantly released Marinette, flushed and far more elated than he had been after his own performance. Their teacher was asking something. “Marinette, did you already know how to play the piano?”

Marinette shook her head numbly.

“She has perfect pitch and a really good ear,” Adrien gushed, one hand still on her shoulder. “And she’s quick to develop muscle memory as well. In her fingers at least,” he added, remembering Marinette’s general clumsiness when it came to coordinating the rest of her body.

A few members of the class tittered at this for some reason, but Adrien was too jubilant to care about whether he’d made an accidental innuendo or not.

“Something of a prodigy, then,” Madame Bustier said, looking impressed. “Are you going to continue learning, Marinette?”

Marinette’s pallor had been entirely replaced with a healthy blush, but that faded along with the half-proud, half-embarrassed smile she’d been wearing.

“Um, I don’t know when I’d practice,” she mumbled, looking down at her hands. “I don’t really have time, or a keyboard at home. Or room for one, even. I-I guess from time to time, maybe, but…”

A collective “aw” rose from the class, and Adrien’s heart fell. Of course, Skills Week now being over, Marinette would go back to being overloaded with homework and sewing and designing and generally being Marinette. And even if she did have time to learn, Adrien wouldn’t have time to teach her. His father would make sure of that.

Adrien squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sure if you practice on the Liberty sometimes, you could figure out a whole bunch of songs on your own,” he said. And then, even though it went against everything he’d ever been taught, he added, “You shouldn’t put pressure on yourself to learn something just because you’re good at it. You should only do it if you enjoy it.”

Marinette looked back at him, in surprise at first. Then her face melted into the warmest, most genuine smile he’d ever seen. Adrien felt his heart stumble unexpectedly.

“Thanks, Adrien,” said Marinette, .

Once everyone’s performances were over and class had been dismissed for the weekend, Adrien wandered out to the front steps with his friends, feeling happy and sad all at once.

“Um,” said Marinette, who was suddenly next to him. “I-I was wondering, um, I know you don’t get much free time, a-and no pressure or anything, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but…”

“Would I teach you again if we happen to find ourselves on the Liberty at the same time?” Adrien finished for her, grinning. Marinette bit her lip and nodded. “Absolutely!” said Adrien. “On one condition.”

Marinette’s eyes widened, curious, and it was Adrien’s turn to be nervous. His hand found the back of his neck and he glanced away, hoping she wouldn’t laugh at him.

“Um, could you teach me how to sew?”

Marinette blinked, and then she did laugh, but it wasn’t mocking or dismissive. She sounded delighted, and Adrien felt his heart quicken again.

“Of course, Adrien!” she said, just as his driver’s car pulled up in front of the school.

Adrien smiled all the way home. Even Plagg’s teasing couldn’t dent his happiness.

Besides, he was starting to think his kwami might be right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention! The piece Marinette learns to play is a slightly modified version of this:   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3J8kDNUvaM


	13. Day 13: Scarf Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug gives Chat Noir a handmade scarf for Christmas. Adrien wears it to school. Marinette, predictably, freaks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for descriptions of a freak-out bordering on a mild (not full-blown) panic attack.

Marinette was freaking out, and Alya was becoming concerned.

It wasn’t that Marinette’s freak-outs were rare, especially as they pertained to a certain Sunshine Boy who sat in front of her. Marinette was not a chill person, and as her best friend, talking her down came with the job description.

No, Alya was concerned because Marinette was freaking out about Adrien’s new scarf, and she wouldn’t explain why. It looked fine. In fact, it looked exactly like the last one she’d made him, except this time it was green.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Alya murmured as Mme Mendeliev droned on about ionic bonds or whatever. “You’re upset because Adrien is wearing the scarf you got him for Christmas?”

“Uhhhhhh” said Marinette, sweating despite the cold weather and Mme Mendeliev’s stubborn refusal to put more than one radiator on.

“Uhh what?” Alya hissed. “Girl, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s bothering you.”

Marinette shook her head, pigtails bobbing. “I - I can’t,” she whispered, tears edging her voice. Alya went from concerned to alarmed. “I’m sorry, Alya, I can’t explain. I need… I need to talk to him.” Her eyes glistened even as she set her jaw.

_Welp. Time to save my bff from having a mysterious freak-out in the middle of class_ . Alya was nothing if not supportive.

“Madame?” Alya raised her hand politely. Madame Mendeliev glared at it. “Marinette’s feeling sick.”

Madame Mendeliev took one look at Marinette’s pale, sweaty face, raised her eyebrows, and nodded curtly before Marinette could protest. “You may take her to the infirmary, Mlle Césaire.”

“Um, I hurt my shoulder this morning though, so I can’t support her weight if she faints. Maybe Nino or Adrien could take her…?”

“Adrien, take Mlle Dupain-Cheng to the infirmary,” said Mme Mendeliev, just as Alya had predicted. (One of those boys could afford to skip class, and it wasn’t Nino.)

What she hadn’t predicted was that Sunshine Boy would already be standing, picking up Marinette’s bag and holding an arm out to support her. Alya and the rest of the class watched as he steered Marinette out of the class, looking… nervous? Excited?? That didn’t make sense. Unless Adrien had finally fallen for Marinette and was just that happy to be alone with her? Was he going to ask her out??  _Now?!_

Alya bit her lip. With Marinette’s luck, she’d probably throw up on him. She sighed, and focused on her teacher’s droning. All she could do now was take notes for her friend. The rest was up to her.

—

“Where did you get that scarf?”

She blurted it out before they were even halfway down the stairs. He was supporting her weight far more than necessary, and she wondered just how bad she must look for him to be this worried. Even if he was who she thought he was. Even if he knew.

The nervous glances he’d been sending her all morning suggested he knew.

He stopped on the stairs.

“The girl I love gave it to me.” He said it all in a rush, with a quiet breathlessness that told her everything.

_Not everything_ , she corrected herself, but it was enough. Ladybug had given Chat Noir that scarf. She now had confirmation that Adrien was Chat Noir.

Marinette’s legs trembled, and her knuckles turned white where they gripped the banister. Adrien guided her down to sit on the steps, leaning forward to see her face, but she continued to stare at the courtyard below.

“Are you okay?”

Marinette wanted to hit him.

Marinette had never wanted to hit Adrien before. She let out a high giggle, and slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle more. It wouldn’t do for them to be discovered before she’d gotten the full truth out of him.

“I made that, y’know,” she said, sounding far more sane than she was feeling.

“I know,” he said, still quiet, still waiting for her to come to the right conclusion on her own. Trying to be patient.

She could feel the nervous energy radiating out of him, like a buzzing in her bones.

“How?”

Adrien took a let out a deep breath, and Marinette realized she hadn’t felt him breathe since he last spoke.

“You told me.”

Ladybug had told Chat Noir she’d made the scarf herself. She now had confirmation that he knew her identity.

He was holding his breath again. Marinette couldn’t blame him. It was suddenly very hard to breathe for her, too.

When she spoke again, she couldn’t hide the tears in her voice.

“Why did you wear it to school?” _Are you insane?! How many times have I told you we can’t know each other’s identities? You know how dangerous this is! What if one of us gets akumatized? What if we accidentally call the other by their civilian name while suited up? What if -_

“Plagg told me to.”

Marinette blinked. Plagg did what?

“He said it would be more dangerous if only I knew and you didn’t, since you’re the Guardian,” Adrien said. “I didn’t get it, but…”

Marinette turned to look at him for the first time since he’d led her out of class. He was red-faced, chewing on his lip and staring at his knees, both hands pressing hard on the step they were sitting on, although one arm was still wrapped around her back.

“I figured you’d probably be mad,” he murmured, stealing nervous glances at her from the corner of his eye, “but, um, for the record, I’m not at all surprised it’s you. I - I mean, I figured it probably was even before you gave me the scarf.”

Marinette’s heart twisted like a wrung-out rag. Her urge to hit him had morphed into an urge to hug him, but she didn’t feel like she deserved to do either.

She turned her gaze to her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice small. “This is all my fault. I should never have given you that scarf.”

There was a moment of surprised silence, and then suddenly she was being wrapped in a hug.

“Please don’t say that,” Adrien murmured next to her ear, and Marinette’s heart beat painfully hard for a slightly different reason. “It’s the best present I’ve ever received. Even better than the first scarf you gave me.”

Ah. So that was the final detail that had been bugging her. No pun intended.

(A still slightly hysterical part of her brain tried to force more giggles up her throat. She swallowed them.)

“How did you know about that?” she asked Adrien’s shirt.

He tensed again, his heartbeat quickening. “I asked Nathalie where Father had bought it, and she ended up telling me the truth. I’m sorry Marinette, I wasn’t thinking. I just… I was angry. I wanted to know why they looked the same, if the blue one was from him. I hoped she’d tell me he’d commissioned or something.”

His cheeks were hot, like he’d been caught doing something wrong and was waiting for her to yell at him. It was a stupid mistake, certainly. People make stupid mistakes when they’re upset. People get upset when their parents lie to them and neglect them. Marinette  _wanted_ to yell. She wanted to suit up and knock some sense into Gabriel Agreste.

That wouldn’t be professional of her, though.

Marinette wrapped her arms around Adrien and pulled him close. “I’m sorry about your dad,” she murmured into his collarbone.

Adrien let out a long, shuddering sigh, and  _melted_ into her, his hands bunching the fabric of her jacket and cupping the back of her head. He nuzzled her cheek in that way Chat Noir did sometimes when he was relieved she hadn’t died, and Marinette squeezed him tighter in response.

Then, in a voice trembling with tears and laughter and all the untold stories between them, he said the thing that made Marinette’s heart stop beating altogether.

“I know it’s way too soon and you’re still freaking out, but I want you to know that I’m even more in love with you now.”

She gasped, choked on thin air, and started coughing into Adrien’s shirt. He backed up, alarmed, and patted her back helplessly. Marinette reached into her bag for her water bottle and downed the whole thing. It helped immensely with the coughing and restarted her heart (a little too fast, in fact), but it was too late for her brain apparently. She must have been deprived of oxygen for too long, because it was making the same long continuous beep as a brain wave monitor receiving nothing at all.

“Sorry,” Adrien was saying. “I - I’m not hoping for anything, I just - I wanted - um.”

Marinette blinked at him. Her face was hot, from coughing or the confession, it didn’t matter. The long beep - or was it a scream? - was resolving itself into a loud stream of words, incoherent at first, but slowly, gradually, becoming a sentence on repeat:

ADRIEN IS CHAT NOIR AND CHAT NOIR LOVES LADYBUG AND LADYBUG IS ME AND I LOVE ADRIEN AND ADRIEN IS CHAT NOIR…

The words seemed to be trying to tell her something. Come to think of it, so was Chat Noir, who was Adrien, who was sitting right there, holding her shoulders, having just confessed his love to her…

“-nette? Marinette!”

“Why _even more?_ ”

How such a coherent sentence had managed to bypass her screaming brain and fly out of her mouth at a reasonable volume and pitch was a mystery to Marinette, but she’d take it. Why “even more”, indeed?

Adrien blinked, making the transition from concerned to embarrassed. His cheeks reddened. He was  _blushing. Adrien was blushing. Marinette had made Adrien blush._

Marinette felt her hands move on their own and clenched her fists. Now was not the time to be doing a victory dance.

“Um,” said Adrien, eloquently.

_I did that to him_ , her brain screamed.

“Just so you know, you’re the boy I’m in love with,” her mouth said, continuing to bypass her brain, which immediately panicked.

“What?”

“UM, WHAT?” Marinette replied at a reasonable volume. _Ah_ , she thought. _I’m finally back in control of my mouth._

“What did you - I’m the - _what?_ ”

This time the hysterical giggles burst out of her regardless, proving that Marinette was in control of absolutely nothing. Adrien joined her after a few seconds, uncertainly at first, then louder. They laughed and laughed, until tears streamed from their eyes and their laughter rang out across the courtyard.

“C-can we talk,” Marinette gasped between giggles, “about this l-later?”

“Okay,” Adrien said, breathing hard and grinning _that_ grin, the one she realized had always reminded her of Chat Noir and made her weak in the knees at the same time, and _how could she not have seen it?_

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Marinette knew she should still be afraid of having found out, but Adrien’s confession had completely reset her brain. The giggles faded, and she was suddenly very aware that his hands were still on her arms, and their heads were so close that his eyes glowed almost Chat Noir green in the shadow between their faces. Adrien seemed to be realizing the same thing, because there was something shy and hopeful in his eyes and in the way he bit his lip just a little. Her breath caught, in a very different way this time, and she felt his own breath shudder, warm on her face, as he exhaled all at once. Her skin tingled wherever it touched him, enticing her to move closer, millimeter by millimeter, as slow and hesitant as it was inevitable, because  _they_ were inevitable. He tilted his head just slightly and stopped, glancing back up to her eyes, asking permission. Marinette leaned forward and closed the gap.

“WHAT IS GOING ON OUT HERE?!”

The pair jumped apart and spun to find Mme Mendeliev standing in the doorway of her classroom, looking more furious than they’d ever seen her.

_Oops_ , they both thought.

Their teacher ranted and raged, with the rest of the class peeking out behind her. After five minutes of loud public humiliation, she gave them a week’s worth of detentions before sending them to see the principal. As Adrien and Marinette walked there, his hand brushed hers, and she caught it and squeezed. They stood outside the door, steeling themselves to go in, or simply reluctant to let go of each others’ hands.

“Ready to get into really big trouble to conceal our secret identities?” Adrien asked.

Marinette bit back yet another giggle. She turned to look at him with laughter in her eyes.

“You and me against the world, right?”

Adrien grinned.

“Always.”


	14. Day 14: Movie Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first movie night post-reveal. Adrien and Marinette discover that they're not quite done with revelations yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote over 1000 words last night and then discarded them, only to write nearly 3000 more of pure fluff. I'm pretty proud of it, but I'm not happy with how this has taken over my life, so from now on I'm going to make an effort to lower my wordcount, even it means less plot.
> 
> Mild spoiler alert for Disney's Coco. The soundtrack analysis video Adrien mentions really exists, and contains way more spoilers, but it also really made me appreciate the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7foqVQNPcQ

Adrien and Marinette huddled against the cat pillow, separated by a few scant centimeters of bed and blanket, watching a movie - Coco, was it? - and trying not to think about how badly this was going.

It had been weeks since they’d decided to reveal their identities, now that they had noone but each other. Weeks since Marinette’s initial freak-out, and in that time, their clumsy efforts to mash together the different ways in which they knew each other had only served to create a giant wall of awkwardness between them.

“Give it time!” Tikki said.

“That last akuma nearly got us both,” Marinette replied. “We don’t have time.”

Thus, movie night. Just like old times, except this time Adrien could detransform and Plagg could wander off in search of cheese pasties, leaving the unlucky pair to stew in their mutual embarrassment. Marinette wondered briefly if asking Adrien to transform back would be weird, and decided that even if he was willing to, it would probably be counterproductive.

Silence sat between them like an unwelcome guest. Usually they ran a running commentary of the movie, laughing and bickering about the music and animation (there was almost always animation). Tonight, though, Marinette had been too busy overthinking to pay attention. The fact that she’d been sleeping badly for weeks didn’t help. She’d reached that level of sleeplessness at which her thoughts ran too thick and fast to follow, never mind control, and everything seemed far more dramatic than it probably was.

“Um, hey,” said Adrien, dragging her back to the present, “did you know that the musical preferences we have now will last our entire lifetime?”

Marinette, who had been expecting either an existential discussion or a request to leave, blinked and looked at him. Adrien held his knees under his chin and squirmed a little, gesturing vaguely towards the screen.

“I watched another soundtrack analysis, that’s why I chose Coco.”

He was trying so hard, it bled her heart. But Marinette was intensely grateful, because this was an opening, and she knew what to say.

“No spoilers!” The words came too loud and too fast, but they were the appropriate words at least.

Adrien shot a glance at her, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a devastatingly familiar smile. (She should be used to it by now. It had been  _weeks_ for crying out loud.)

“I wasn’t gonna,” he murmured.

Marinette turned back to where the protagonist was sitting in front of what appeared to be an altar with a black-and-white TV and dozens of candles on it, blissfully playing a guitar.

“That’s a fire hazard,” she pointed out, forcing the words around the lump of anxiety in her throat and ignoring the voice in her head screaming that it was _lame, she was so lame_.

Adrien let out a low, nervous giggle. “I didn’t see any fires in the video I watched, but you never know.”

Silence fell again, and Marinette panicked a little before remembering that quiet moments where they just sat and watched the movie were also normal. She tried to relax. Before, their silences had been comfortable. This one felt prickly with expectations, and Marinette found herself wracking her brain for a comment, a question,  _anything_ to break it.

“So, without spoilers, what did the video say?” she asked eventually.

“It was less about the soundtrack this time,” he replied. “It focussed more on how music affected the characters. See how Coco has dementia? Turns out - oh wait, I can’t tell you yet, that’s a spoiler.” Adrien’s cheeks flushed like sunset in the yellow lamplight, and he buried his nose in his arms. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Chat Noir had never apologized for info dumping on her, nor for spoiling her, for that matter. Chat Noir was a gleeful troll. Marinette wondered if transforming back might make this easier for him, too.

_No, not yet. If we can’t work this, then maybe, but for now…_

“It’s okay, I asked,” she murmured back, but the conversation had once again stumbled to a halt.

Marinette sighed miserably and settled into her own curled arms. What were their silences like before? What was it that had made the difference between easy closeness and awkward restraint? She pulled images from Before out of her memory, holding them up to the present in comparison. It wasn’t the fact that he was Adrien; things had never been  _this_ difficult between them. Even when Marinette had floundered under the weight of her crush on him ( _DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT_ ), Adrien had never had trouble talking to her, laughing with her, even getting into her personal space…

That was it. Chat Noir, too, had given little thought to social boundaries, with her at least - as Ladybug or Marinette. Now, however, he seemed to be holding back. Was that it? Had he somehow convinced himself she didn’t want him touching her any more? How?

_Well, you did have a massive freak-out at first, and then you avoided him for a few days,_ said a reasonable, Tikki-like voice in her mind.

Guilt twisted her gut like a thousand tiny needles, threading outwards. Of course, it was her fault. She always ruined everything.

_That’s not what I meant,_ the Tikki-voice said sternly. _You know guilt-tripping yourself gets you nowhere. Focus on what you need to do to fix your mistake._

Marinette eyed the unnatural gap between their bodies. Before, Chat Noir would have snuggled right into her lap like an overgrown cat, grabbing her hands and guiding them to his hair - and cat ears - until she pet him. Or he would curl his body next to hers, letting her lean on him, occasionally snaking an arm around her back. Or he’d sit behind her and she’d lean against his chest, unless his hands were in her hair - he loved to play with her hair, she suddenly remembered, and her scalp ached for long-forgotten contact.

That wouldn’t be weird to ask for, would it?

“Um,” Marinette said, before she could overthink it, “do you want to - I mean, could you… play with my hair like you used to?”

Her voice came out softer and more pleading than she’d intended, but Adrien’s eyes grew wide with surprise and a spark of something she hadn’t seen in weeks - hope? Happiness?  _Have I been making him sad?_

_Shut up don’t guilt trip just fix it._

“Okay,” he said, uncurling his body as he turned towards her, hesitantly. “Um, how do you want to…”

Marinette shifted forward, being careful not to topple her laptop, until there was a space behind her for him to slip into. He did so without his usual cat-like grace, bumping his knee against her back and apologizing hastily.

“Can you, um, take out your pigtails?”

Marinette did so, twisting round to place the hair bands on the shelf just behind his shoulder, before turning back to face the movie. There was a moment’s pause, during which she wondered irrationally if he was regretting it; then she felt his fingers brush her hair, so gently it tickled. The sensation sent a shiver down her spine, and she felt him stop.

“Go on,” she said.

He was a little bolder this time, though still as gentle as he’d always been. She felt him thread his fingers along the silky locks from root to tip, and was glad she’d chosen today to condition it. His bare fingers weren’t as smooth as the suit, and he didn’t have the claws to work painlessly through the knots he found - she never figured out how he did that. Still, the sensation was familiar enough that Marinette felt herself melting against him - and froze.

_What are you tensing up for? This was the point!_

But leaning against Adrien was fundamentally different to leaning against Chat Noir, for the simple reason that Chat Noir wore a thick leathery magic suit and Adrien was wearing thin cotton pyjamas, through which his body heat could be felt much more intensely. Sudden sparks bloomed just under her skin, stirring the butterflies sleeping in her gut, and as his bare fingers brushed the back of her neck, flames licking in their wake, it occurred to Marinette that perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

“Are you okay?” Adrien asked, his breath warming her shoulder as he leaned sideways, trying to see her expression.

Marinette, who knew enough about her runaway mouth not to trust it in situations like these, nodded. She forced her muscles to relax, ignoring the tickly heat that curled like smoke wherever their bodies touched. His fingers hovered halfway down her hair for a moment before pursuing their slow journey.

It was no use. Every time she forced herself to relax against him, his contact ignited her skin, even through their pyjamas. Her heart was running a marathon, punctuated by sprints whenever his fingertips caressed her skin, and Marinette was certain the heat in her face must be visible on the back of her neck.

There was no way she could focus on the movie. She was too busy trying not to tremble.

Adrien was watching it, though, or at least something in it caught his attention, because she felt him tense up all at once. His hands clenched momentarily around her hair before jerking themselves open, and even as her scalp mourned their loss, Marinette frowned with concern and glanced back at him. Adrien was looking over her shoulder, wide eyes fixed on the screen. She glanced back in time to hear the protagonist - whose name she’d forgotten - say “That’s what families do! Support each other!” and remembered with painful clarity that Chat Noir always cried when families fought in movies. That memory took on a sharp new meaning now she knew he was Adrien.

She reached back to where his hands still hovered just behind her shoulders and pulled his arms around her like a shawl. She felt him inhale sharply in surprise, and had another second of panicky doubt, before he buried his face in her hair and squeezed her shoulders. Marinette was relieved to notice that the tickly heat had died down in light of her concern for him, and she concentrated on running her hands up and down his forearms and rocking gently back and forth. She felt a drop of something lukewarm slide down her collarbone.

“Adrien?” She paused the movie and tried to turn her head to get a better look at him, but his grip on her was too tight. “Are you okay?”

His hair tickled her cheek as he shook his head, or maybe he was nuzzling her. “Sorry,” he mumbled into her shoulder. “It’s nothing, I just…” His breath shuddered against her skin, but she was too worried about him to think about it. “I missed… this.”

_I missed you_ . The words he’d wanted to say burrowed into her heart, leaving a thousand tiny holes on its surface. Marinette swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, which were suddenly hot, and pressed her cheek to his forearm. “I missed you, too. I was just…”

“I know,” he said with another squeeze. “It’s okay.”

_It’s not okay,_ she wanted to say, but he needed her to be there for him now, not make it about her. She patted his arms twice, an unspoken signal to loosen his grip, and he did so reluctantly. Marinette twisted until she was almost facing him and wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight hug. He instantly returned it, one hand tangling in her hair again while the other arm hugged her waist. They stayed like that for a while, until her back began to ache, twisted as it was. She pulled away slightly to adjust her position, and paused when she saw his face. Tears still glistened on his cheeks. Without thinking, she wiped them away, and her hand lingered on his face for just a second too long. His eyes met hers, and suddenly all the heat from earlier came rushing back, and she could do nothing to hide it.

She felt his tiny gasp as much as she heard it. His grip on her seemed to loosen slightly even as he tensed, his touch lighter than before but still keeping her there, and Marinette’s pulse quickened as shimmery heat burned and sparkled at every point of contact. His eyes, still glistening slightly, held all the heat of a summer storm, and the air between them was suddenly charged with something raw and electric. Marinette bit her lip in an effort to hide the hitch in her breath, and his gaze flickered down to it before meeting her eyes again. She felt a tremor in the hand that slid forward, out of her hair, fingertips grazing the side of her neck and jaw. His thumb touched the corner of her mouth and pulled, ever so gently, against her bottom lip, until it slipped out from under her teeth. His gaze lingered there, shy and needy and a little awed, and Marinette left out a short, shuddering breath.

His eyes flickered back up to hers again, somehow closer than they’d been before, noses almost touching. Marinette tilted her head instinctively, too entranced to think, too spellbound to wonder if this was anything but right.

He closed the gap between them, his lips brushing hers in the slightest caress. It lasted barely a second, but it made her head swim and her heart soar, and when he pulled back, she chased him unthinkingly. She caught his lips in hers again, more firmly this time, using the hand still cupping his face to draw him closer, threading her fingers into his hair. His own hands twitched and clenched slightly, and he let out a tiny hum, high with surprise and need. The sound, almost short enough to have been her imagination, shot through her like lightning and lit a wildfire in her belly, which spread rapidly to the rest of her body. Her tongue ran over his bottom lip, almost unintentionally, and he gasped against her and deepened their kiss, his hands pulling her closer and closer. Honey laced the blood in her veins, spreading a delicious sweetness throughout as her heartbeat thundered, blocking out everything that wasn’t him, her, them.

It felt like she was drowning in him. Finally, when she thought her heart might explode, she wrenched her lips away from his, gasping. He chased her with a needy whine that raced through her body like a drug, and it took all of her self-control to put her fingers on his mouth, preventing him from kissing her again. He met her eyes and kissed her fingertips instead. His hair was a mess, more Chat Noir than Adrien, and his cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright. He was breathing hard against her fingers, and the place where he’d kissed them tingled.

“I…” Marinette started, in a voice so low and raw that it shocked even her. She saw Adrien’s pupils dilate as she swallowed and tried again. “Sorry,” she murmured, feeling not the least bit sorry.

His brow furrowed. “Why?” he asked, and the roughness in his voice did nothing to quench the fire in her belly.

Marinette blinked, a tiny, helpless smile curling her lips. “I don’t know,” she said. “For… being in love with you, I guess?”

The confession tumbled out of her before she could stop it, but she didn’t have time to panic. She barely even had time to see Adrien’s eyes widen and his breath catch before he pulled her hand away and caught her lips in another kiss, softer and more tender than the last, but by no means less passionate. Their fingers interlaced, and his other hand trailed up her arm until he was cupping her face gently, thumbs stroking the blush on her cheek. This time, he was the one who pulled back first.

“I’ve been in love with you ever since we first met, Marinette,” he said huskily, and her heartbeat quickened at the sound of her name.

“With Ladybug,” she corrected with a breathless laugh, but he kissed away her retort.

“With _you_ ,” he said. “All of you. You have _no idea_ ,” he let out a breathy giggle of his own. “You have no idea how messed up I was. I was in denial for months. And when I could no longer deny it, I felt guilty…”

Marinette swallowed the rest of his explanation, bringing her own hands up to cup his face.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way, then,” she said, smiling.

“Don’t be…”

They went back to kissing again, more confident this time, giddy with feelings acknowledged and reciprocated at last. The movie sat forgotten for a good hour before they parted with soft giggles. When they started it again, wound tightly in each others’ arms, as close as they could possible get, neither of them was very focused on the story.

They fell asleep before the end, bathed in the warmth of their love for each other, and the knowledge that nothing would ever come between them again.


	15. Days 15 & 16: Sacrifices and Rejected Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark Owl is coming dangerously close to finding out Ladybug and Chat Noir's secret identities. Adrien and Marinette take him out with the help of a tiny robot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, it was kind of inevitable, but Adrinette April has gotten too intense for me to continue in the way I have been so far. Since I'm apparently incapable of writing anything shorter than 1500 words, I've decided to group the rest of the prompts together in pairs. I hope you enjoy them regardless!

“Dark Owl, this is Hawkmoth! So Ladybug won’t give you a miraculous, huh? Well, she and Chat Noir are just teenagers after all. Far too young to be superheroes themselves - why, their grades might slip! Show these children who the real hero is - and confiscate their miraculouses for me!”

“Yes, Hawkmoth! HOO-HOOOOO!”

—

Adrien was in a bind. Literally. He was tied to a chair in the courtyard along with the rest of his classmates, surrounded by cameras and listening to yet another supervillain speech. Dark Owl had figured out that most of the temporary miraculous holders were in Mme Bustier’s class, and speculated that Ladybug and Chat Noir could be there, too. Any other day, the thought that Ladybug might have been sitting somewhere behind him all along would have had Adrien bouncing off the walls with excitement, but today he fervently hoped Dark Owl was wrong.

At least he wouldn’t be tied up for long.

“Try not to cataclysm my hands, okay?” he whispered to Plagg, who was hiding in his collar.

“Don’t worry, kid, the wound would cauterize the stump instantly.”

“ _Not_ the point _\- Plagg!_ ” Adrien hissed, but his kwami was gone already, having apparently phased through Adrien’s body (ugh). Adrien squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of losing a hand, but instead the ropes suddenly loosened, and dropped to the floor.

“You didn’t even destroy the entire rope!” Adrien whispered in awe.

“And you thought I was going to cataclysm your hand off. Ye of little faith!” Plagg snorted, reappearing in Adrien’s collar as Adrien slipped off his chair and began to crawl towards the edge of the courtyard.

“Come on, we gotta find a place to-”

Dark Owl suddenly loomed over him, looking surprisingly ridiculous for all he was one of the trickiest akumas they’d ever fought.

“WHOOO IS THIS! ADRIEN AGRRRESTE!” Dark Owl hooted, rolling his R’s for some reason. Adrien fell backwards and scrambled away from the villain. “HOW DID YOUUU GET FRRREE, HMMM?”

“I’m a descendant of Houdini?” Adrien improvised.

One of Dark Owls new robot servants brought him the bit of rope Adrien had been tied with. Dark Owl inspected it. The end looked frayed and slightly blackened.

Adrien’s mind raced for an explanation. “I like playing with matches?”

“HRRRMPH,” Dark Owl harrumphed. “I SUPPOSE YOU’RE FRRREE TO GO THEN!”

Adrien blinked, but Dark Owl appeared to be serious. The villain gestured behind him, towards the boy’s bathroom. There was a malignant glint in his eye.

_Oh, right. A trap._

“Uh, thanks,” said Adrien, sidestepping past the villain and eyeing the boy’s bathroom with suspicion. Dark Owl turned his back, ostensibly ignoring him. Adrien stopped just outside the door and took out his phone, ducking his head so the cameras wouldn’t see his lips move.

“Plagg, check out the boy’s bathroom for me!”

Plagg phased in and out of the door in seconds. “It’s full of robot cameras,” he said.

Adrien glanced around and spotted a janitor’s closet, but there were cameras trained on that as well.

“It’s no use, I’ll just have to wait until Ladybug shows up,” he muttered into his phone.

Plagg was ominously silent. Usually the perspective of skipping out on his duties would have been cause for celebration. Adrien glanced down to see if the kwami was already napping, and saw an odd, wide-eyed, flat-lipped expression on his face instead. It was the kind of expression that said, “Welp. We’re doomed.”

“Ladybug’s in my class, isn’t she.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that information.”

Adrien’s heart lurched, and not in a good way. (Well,  _mostly_ not in a good way.)

“What should I do? It’ll be dangerous if I find out who she is, but I can’t just sit around if she’s still tied up!”

Plagg tapped his chin with a nubby paw. “What if we free everyone? You distract Dark Owl, and I’ll loosen everyone’s ropes just like I did with yours.”

“Great plan, Plagg! Hey, Mister Dark Owl, sir?” Adrien called. “My father’s worried I might be in danger if I keep going to this school so I have to send him a video proving I’m safe…”

Adrien was banking on the principal’s school pride carrying over to the akuma, and was rewarded when the villain spun to face him, looking affronted. “Of course you’re safe - I’m saving these young heroes from  _themselves_ !” Dark Owl cried.

“What do you mean?” asked Adrien innocently, not looking at the tiny shadow that slipped around Dark Owl’s ankles and under the nearest seat.

“Well, obviously a child like you wouldn’t understand,” said Dark Owl pompously, “but when you grow up, you’ll realize that leaving such powerful magic in the hands of mere teenagers would be highly irresponsible, not to mention a disservice to them, and…”

Adrien nodded politely and made all the right noises to keep Dark Owl talking, but when the purple butterfly mask appeared, he thought he’d failed.

“But - how do you know?” Dark Owl asked, apparently talking to Hawkmoth. There was a pause. “Alright, alright, no need to shout,” he grumbled. He turned back to glare at his prisoners, but none of them had moved yet. Adrien saw Marinette’s fingers curled around the ropes, and thanked his lucky stars she was clever enough not to move yet.

“Sir,” he said, tapping Dark Owl’s forearm. “Could you repeat all that on video for my father, please? So he knows I’m safe.”

The purple mask reappeared, and Dark Owl whirled back to look at the students again, but they still hadn’t moved. The villain harrumphed, and turned back to Adrien.

“Thank you, Sir,” Adrien said, as he pretended to fiddle with his phone.

The purple mask appeared  _again_ . This time, Dark Owl wasn’t having it. “Oh don’t be so paranoid, where would they even go?” He winced, as though someone were screaming through the phone at him, and raised an eyebrow at Adrien. “He says you’re grou-” he winced again, harder. “Alright, alright! Ouch! My goodness.” Then he muttered something about fifty years being a bit severe.

“Sorry, sir, there’s something wrong with my phone,” Adrien interrupted, before Dark Owl could turn back to his prisoners, four of whom were now shuffling from chair to chair in impressive coordination until they got to the end of their row. Mylène and Alix has already scampered off somewhere, and Marinette was glancing nervously back towards Dark Owl.

Adrien made a show of poking at his unreactive touchscreen.

“Let me see it, boy,” Dark Owl said, taking the phone off him. Hawkmoth seemed to have given up yelling for the time being. “I know my way around modern technology.”

Adrien watched politely as Dark Owl poked and prodded and turned his screen on and off and had Adrien unlock it again. By the time the villain had figured out he was poking not at Adrien’s homescreen, but at a screenshot of it, over half the class had been freed.

Dark Owl spun and let out an outraged yelp, before whipping back to face Adrien, who’d been trying to creep away.

“Catch him!” Dark Owl screeched, and Adrien suddenly found himself being chased by several robots. He raced halfway up the stairs, saw more robots waiting for him at the top, and leapt over the banister, landing in a practiced roll. The impact still jolted his bones, though, and he hissed in pain as he limped away as fast as he could.

“Adrien!”

Adrien spun, but didn’t have time to see who it was before someone grabbed him in a choke hold and yanked him into a closet, slamming the door shut behind them. Adrien panicked and struggled, and his captor released him, stammering apologies. Adrien coughed and turned towards the voice.

“Marinette?”

“I’m so sorry Adrien!”

Adrien backed away from the door, which was shaking as several robots bumped repeatedly into it. There wasn’t much room in the closet, so he quickly found himself backing into Marinette.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“It’s fine,” she replied. “Are you alright? I saw limping after you jumped off the stairs.”

“My leg was a bit jolted, that’s all. I’ve had worse.” He smiled before realizing she couldn’t see him, then reached for his phone, only to remember that Dark Owl still had it. “Could you give us some light, Marinette?”

“Oh, of course!” said Marinette, fumbling for her phone in the dark. Adrien hoped she didn’t drop it in a bucket or something.

_I wonder where Plagg is_ , he thought. He couldn’t feel his kwami on him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. Adrien couldn’t call him in front of Marinette, though.

A too-bright spot of light blinded them both for a second, before Marinette turned her phone towards the door.

“You think Ladybug will show up at some point?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

“Mmm I hope so,” Marinette replied. Her voice was high and nervous, but then, Marinette often sounded nervous around Adrien. Probably because his dad was her favourite designer. “And Chat Noir, too,” she added.

“Haha, yeah,” Adrien replied, trying not to sound too nervous himself.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“What do you think we should do if they can’t come?” Marinette asked quietly.

Adrien’s stomach twisted. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe we could find a way to destroy all the cameras? That way, if they are here, they’ll be able to transform without revealing their identities.”

“Good idea,” said Marinette. “But I don’t know how we’d even get close enough to destroy one without being caught by those robots.”

“I do.”

Adrien and Marinette shrieked and jumped into each other, landing against the door in a heap of tangled limbs. The light went down with them, and they were plunged into darkness.

“My apologies for startling you,” the voice said again. It sounded slightly robotic, and Adrien’s immediate thought was that one of the robots was in the closet with them, but before he could scream or throw himself over Marinette, a blue light appeared, framing two round black dots.

“Markov?” Marinette struggled to stand until Adrien realized his legs were trapping hers and pulled them away with some difficulty.

“I know how to disable the robots, but it would mean exposing myself to their defenses. Doing so would erase my entire hard drive.”

Adrien and Marinette let out a gasp before bursting into babbling protest.

“No way, you can’t -”

“We can’t let you do that -

“There has to be another -”

“I’ve calculated the probable success rates of all other possible schemes, but none of them come close to succeeding. If Ladybug or Chat Noir were not in this school, according to precedent, they would have appeared by now. They are certainly trapped here and unable to transform, which means I have no other choice.”

“But Markov,” said Marinette, her voice wobbling. “What about Max?”

“I would trust him to remake me,” Markov said. “He has copies of my memories and personality. Of course, it wouldn’t technically be me, but it’d be similar enough as to not matter.”

Marinette let out a tiny sob. Adrien swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat.

“Max would never agree to this,” he said.

“That’s why I hid here,” Markov replied. “Max’s well-being in a city so often threatened by supervillains is dependent on the continued existence of superheroes, and their capacity to keep their identities secret from Hawkmoth.” He flew down to their level and hovered just above Marinette’s cupped hands, gazing up at her. “Please believe me when I say this is the only plan with a significant chance of success. There is nothing you can do to avoid it that will not, in all probability, make the situation worse.”

Marinette pulled the robot to her wet cheek. Markov’s propeller paused its rotations and his eyes blinked into horizontal lines, as though he were closing them for a moment. Adrien reached out and, not knowing what to do but wanting to do  _something_ , gently fistbumped Markov’s robotic arm. The arm produced a three-fingered hand, which fistbumped him back. 

Adrien wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

“Tell Max I love him, please,” Markov said.

“We will,” Adrien and Marinette sobbed in unison.

Markov explained the plan to them, and they executed it dutifully, tearful but determined not to waste Markov’s sacrifice. Adrien ran towards the boy’s bathroom as the robots fell, and glanced back, barely noticing as Marinette ducked into the girls’ bathroom. His eyes were elsewhere, on a small blue and grey form lying among the fallen robots. The bravest little robot in the world.

—

Of course, when the miraculous ladybugs brought Markov back, and Max revealed that the little robot had been experimenting with pranks, the shock was almost enough to make Chat Noir reveal his identity by accident.


	16. Days 17 & 18: Life Swap and Pastries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Collège Françoise Dupont, for plot reasons, organizes Family Exchange Week. Adrien and Chloe swap houses (Chloe rigged it obviously), but fortunately for our two protagonists, so do Marinette and Sabrina. This is how Adrien and Marinette end up having a sleepover at Chloe's house, sans Chloe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been leaving me comments on here, first of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH I LOVE YOU <3 <3 <3
> 
> Second of all, I've been having a lot of lag, which is why I haven't been replying as much. I really want to reply to everyone, but it's very frustrating when I have to wait thirty seconds for the reply box to show up, and then when I try to send, it only works every other time, and even then, it takes over a minute. This might be because AO3 is swamped at the moment, or it might be my crappy wifi, or a combination of both, but either way I've more or less given up replying for now and will get round to it once Adrinette April is finished. Sorry! >_<

The butler’s name was Matthias. He’d looked surprised when Adrien had asked, and he still blinked in amazement every time he or Marinette got his name right. Adrien would have to have a serious talk with Chloe about fair treatment of household staff, but that could wait until Family Exchange Week was over. And right now, Adrien didn’t want to think about that.

“I can’t believe Sabrina’s mother basically threw you out of the house,” he said, a little too happily.

“She didn’t throw me out, exactly,” Marinette amended. “She just looked so confused to see me there and kept asking when I was coming here. She forgot to make dinner for me, and then she made twice as much so I could bring some over, and then she had to go to work and was really worried about leaving me alone, so in the end I came here.”

“Well that’s fine,” Adrien said, grinning. “I never get to have friends over at home, so I might as well make the most of it.”

“It’s a shame we can’t invite Nino and Alya over, too,” Marinette said, unconvincingly given blush she was wearing, but only Matthias noticed.

“Yeah, but we’ll have fun! It’s my first slumber party,” Adrien admitted, “so you’ll have to tell me if I’m doing it right.”

Marinette’s eyes grew tragically wide. “You’ve never -  _not even with Chloe?_ ”

Adrien shook his head. Marinette fixed him with that stare that Nino and Alya sometimes gave him, the one that meant he’d been missing out on an essential part of childhood. As often happened, it was soon replaced by a set-jawed glare of solid determination. Adrien always felt uncomfortable during the stare, but the glare usually meant they were about to make sure he had the time of his life, so in a way it was worth it.

“We’re gonna have the _best slumber party ever,_ ” Marinette declared. And, because she was Marinette, she made a list of Essential Slumber Party Activities.

Matthias, who had been hovering discreetly nearby, cleared his throat.

“Not to intrude on your planning, but don’t your reports demand that you try the same leasure activities as your exchange partners, as much as possible at least?”

Marinette glanced at her list, and her shoulders slumped. “I guess playing Ultimate Mecha Strike 3 is out of the question,” she sighed.

“Mlle Bourgeois doesn’t have it, I’m afraid,” said Matthias. “Although, of course, I can obtain it if you wish. She has a few other video games, but she rarely plays them when Mlle Raincomprix is here.”

“What _does_ she do?” asked Adrien.

(Matthias raised an eyebrow at an empty spot in the air a few feet away. Had they been in a TV show, the fourth wall would have shattered.)

“Well,” he said, “they do like to… dress up.”

—

“I knew Chloe did Ladybug cosplay, but I wasn’t expecting the secret compartment in her wardrobe,” Marinette said, inspecting the blue-lit compartment with interest.

“I wasn’t expecting this to fit me,” said Adrien, lifting his arms up to inspect the sleeves. The suit was a little short, but impressively stretchy. “What is this stuff?”

“Looks like some kind of spandex,” said Marinette, picking at the the Chat Noir costume in her arms. She seemed reluctant to get changed, and equally as reluctant to look at him. Adrien worried that he looked ridiculous at first, but Marinette was blushing, not laughing.

_Maybe she thinks I look cool?_ Adrien wondered excitedly.

“Your turn in the bathroom,” he said out loud. “Unless you don’t want to. You shouldn’t do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

“No no, I’ll - I will, it’s just…” Marinette glanced at him, her eyes running from head to toe before darting away again. Her cheeks reddened.

_I definitely look cool_ , Adrien thought with a satisfied inner smirk.

“I guess if yours fits, mine should too,” she mumbled, and she hurried off to change as well.

When she slunk out of the bathroom five minutes later, Adrien gasped.

“You look adorable!” he squealed into his closed fists.

Marinette let out a nervous giggle to go with the blush on her cheeks and fiddled with the cuffs of her sleeves, glancing up at him through her eyelashes and away again repeatedly. This, of course, only made her  _more_ cute.

“Your ears are a bit wonky, but I think you should leave them like that,” Adrien remarked gleefully.

“I can’t get them to sit straight,” Marinette muttered, fiddling with one of them.

He resisted the urge to pet her.

“So, now what?” asked Marinette, anxious to draw attention away from her adorable self.

“There are masks, also,” Matthias pointed out, holding the masks out on a platter.

Adrien hurriedly denied the need for masks, and wasn’t too surprised to see Marinette do the same. Knowing Marinette’s luck, a mask would obscure her vision and make her trip.

“If you are ready, then,” Matthias said, “at this point, Mlle Bourgeois and Mlle Raincomprix would act out… The Scenario.”

—

Twenty minutes later, Matthias was sorely regretting this suggestion.

“I just don’t really get what Mustachio’s powers _are_ ,” said Marinette, nursing several bruises with the practiced resignation of the pathologically clumsy.

“Or how they’re supposed to make us - I mean, Ladybug and Chat Noir - hand over their miraculouses,” Adrien chimed in, nursing surprisingly few bruises. Marinette nodded.

They had spent a good ten minutes giggling at Mustachio and each other, before they decided to take the exercise seriously.  _Too_ seriously. First they had attempted several actual superhero moves with far more confidence than either of them ought to have, seeming surprised when their bodies refused to cooperate. Then, while Matthias checked them for more serious injury (unnecessary, they’d said, but the hotel’s insurance policy disagreed), they had launched into a deep analysis of Mustachio’s backstory and superpowers, before moving on to provide a detailed critique of The Scenario itself.

Matthias wasn’t sure which was more exhausting.

“Look,” he said eventually, “it’s just a story Mlle Bourgeois invented. I don’t think it requires such deep analysis. I’ve certainly never attempted to really understand it.”

Marinette gave him a considering frown. “I hope you get paid extra for this,” she said.

“Oh, I do,” Matthias remarked wryly. “Mayor Bourgeois is a _very_ generous employer.”

“Well, what else do Chloe and Sabrina do together?” asked Adrien.

Matthias sighed with relief and quickly replied: “Mostly Mlle Raincomprix gives Mlle Bourgeois a manicure, or a pedicure, and Mlle Bourgeois reads magazines.”

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a glance and shrugged.

“I could paint your nails,” Marinette said, raising an amused eyebrow.

“Ooh, can I have them black like Luka?”

Marinette gasped, her cheeks pinking slightly as her eyes glowed with vision.

“Oh yes!” she clapped her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet. “I could do your make-up, too! I bet you’d look great with eyeliner - I mean, not that you don’t look great all the time - I mean-!”

“I shall go and fetch the necessary equipment,” Matthias said. Technically he wasn’t supposed to interrupt, but the grateful look Marinette shot him as he parted told him it was the right thing to do.

—

“Stop fidgeting,” Marinette giggled. “I know you can do better, Mister Model.”

Adrien, who had been unwittingly channeling Chat Noir ever since he’d found himself sitting cross-legged on a bed with Marinette and a bunch of snacks (he’d have to be careful about that), opened one eye and grinned at her. She was wearing pink and white pyjamas, though she’d kept the wonky cat ears when he’d begged.

“Sorry,” he said.

Marinette gave him a sort of wry-but-fond look that said she knew he wasn’t at all sorry, but forgave him anyway. She was much closer to his face than she usually was, but for once she didn’t seem to notice, focused as she was on applying eyeliner in a slick, cold line just above his eyelashes.

Adrien was used to having his make-up done, but he usually zoned out a little while it was happening. He wasn’t used to being conscious of his make-up artist. He’d first felt it when she was painting his nails: how he was suddenly noticing everything, from the cool contact of the brush, to the way she held his hand, her head bent over it in concentration, close enough that he could smell her shampoo. Like he was suddenly very  _there_ . The feeling got stronger when she moved onto his face. He could feel Marinette’s breath from this close, a soft, regular caress on his cheek, still buttery and sweet from the pastries they’d eaten earlier. 

Her delicate fingers tilted his head to just the angle she wanted, leaving tiny trails of tingling warmth just under his skin. He didn’t know why she was having this effect on him. Maybe it was the lack of a base coat on the rest of his face. Maybe it was because it was her, Marinette, who he liked and admired and felt a tiny bit shy around sometimes, because how could he not, before the girl who’d designed Jagged Stone’s album cover and saved both of Paris’ superheroes from discovery by Kwamibuster?

Flutters stirred in Adrien’s stomach, and he felt his cheeks warm a little at the thought that  _this girl_ had chosen to spend time with him, had promised him the best sleepover ever, and was doing his make-up, her face mere inches away. He took a deep breath and made a conscious effort to keep still. He was looking forward to seeing the results, after all.

—

“It’s weird, isn’t it,” he said.

Marinette’s mouth twisted as she tilted her head, standing next to him in the mirror.

“It’s good, but it _would_ look better if your hair was a different colour,” she agreed.

Adrien sighed. His father would never allow him to dye his hair, of that he was certain.

“When I’m older and independent, I’m gonna dye my hair _all the colours_ ,” he said, drawing a giggle from Marinette. “So, what’s next?” he asked her.

Marinette glanced down at the Sleepover Activities List she’d brought in with them.

“Matthias said Chloe ‘reads magazines’ and ‘binge-watches teen dramas and reality shows.’”

There was a pause.

“I’m down for whatever,” said Adrien, who had appeared in far more magazines than he’d ever read. “I’ll let you choose.”

Marinette and Adrien spent a few minutes flipping through Chloe’s People magazines, growing more perplexed with each page they turned. It seemed the entire point of the magazine was to take unflattering photos of celebrities (there were a few of Ladybug and several of Chat Noir) and invent sensational stories based on pure speculation.

Marinette threw one down with a huff. “They’re so stupid!” she said crossly.

Adrien leaned over from his spot on the bed to look at it. “What’s the matter?” he asked. He’d been surprised to find nothing about his civilian self - so far.

“There’s an entire article in there saying that Chat Noir is useless and Ladybug could do better without him. Even though he’s saved her countless times! He’s literally died and been brought back so she could win! _More than once!_ ”

Adrien blinked in surprise, then smiled. “I guess you’d know, since you’re best friends with the Ladyblogger.”

Marinette flushed a little and glanced away, still looking grumpy. The ears were even more lopsided now.

“I just think he should get more recognition, is all,” she grumbled. “He’s just as important as Ladybug, and she knows it. She’s said it _loads_ of times to the press. I bet articles like that annoy the _hell_ out of her.”

Adrien shook his head. “Not that I know her personally, but I can’t see Ladybug reading these kinds of magazines much,” he said. “And I really doubt Chat Noir does, either.”

“They still shouldn’t be allowed to publish stuff like that,” Marinette continued. “He acts cocky but he’s a big softy on the inside. I-I mean,” she added quickly, “you can tell, because he likes kids and is kind to the victims and stuff.”

Adrien allowed a teasing grin to spread across his face. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a little  _thing_ for Chat Noir, would you?”

Marinette’s expression went from cross to surprised to downright scornful.

“Pff, as if,” she snorted, crossing her arms. Adrien felt his heart break a tiny bit - then he noticed she was blushing again, just a little.

His grin widened. “You’re blushing!” he crowed, touching her cheek. “You  _do_ like him!”

“I do _not!_ ” Marinette spluttered, her face reddening further. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You seemed pretty keen to defend him, though,” Adrien pointed out.

“Because it’s not fair! Nobody should have stuff like that published about them!”

“So you’re saying you don’t like him?”

Marinette floundered. “It’s not that I  _don’t_ like him,” she said, still flushing prettily. “He’s really sweet and supportive, and he always has Ladybug’s back, and he’s not nearly as dumb as he pretends to be, and he’s even kinda funny sometimes when he gets the timing right…”

Adrien felt his cheeks warm with a blush of his own, and slightly regretted his teasing.

“…but I don’t _like_ -like him,” she finished.

Adrien couldn’t for the life of him think of anything to say.

“Wanna binge-watch a teen drama?” Marinette asked, seizing the opportunity to change the subject.

“Okay,” said Adrien gratefully.

—

The blanket fort was the best space Adrien had ever been inside of. Made mostly of pink and purple sheets, and filled with soft fairy lights, pillows, and a stock of drinks and pastries Matthias had taken the liberty to order from the Dupain-Cheng bakery (Marinette had hugged him, and Adrien had thought she might cry for a second).

A couple of hours in, they’d put a good dent in their snacks, and Adrien was getting far more invested in Gossip Girl than he’d ever thought he would, when a soft weight slumped gently onto his left shoulder. He glanced down with a strange sense of déjà-vu, to see that Marinette had fallen asleep on him. She was as warm and soft as he remembered from that time on the Startrain - Adrien still had the picture of them that Alya had sent him - and he was immediately torn between finishing the episode and falling asleep, too.

Gravity intervened, pulling Marinette’s head down backwards. They were sitting on the floor, their backs to the sofa, which stopped just above her shoulders. Marinette jolted awake - barely.

“W-what happen,” she mumbled.

“You fell asleep,” Adrien told her, smiling.

Marinette frowned sleepily, then plonked her head back onto his shoulder with a muttered “shh Kitty,” and closed her eyes again.

Adrien kept very, very still. Marinette had just called him “Kitty”. He was suddenly grateful that Matthias had declined their invitation to join their binge-fest, saying he’d already seen the whole series five times. The butler could probably be trusted to be discreet, but Adrien preferred to be safe. In the very least, it could be awkward for Marinette to explain her friendship with a certain black-clad superhero.

Predictably, she began to fall backwards again. This time Adrien caught her, cupping her head with one hand so he could carefully place his arm behind it. Satisfied that she couldn’t fall back again, he slipped his hand out from under her hair (she’d taken it down, a rare blessing), only for her to snuggle right up to his chest this time, throwing one arm across his body.

Adrien forgot to breathe for a second. A balloon of happiness inflated his chest, and he felt like he might float right off the ground with her.  _She was so cute!_ He wished he could take a photo, but his phone was on the coffee table, just out of reach.

With Gossip Girl playing completely forgotten in the background, Adrien weighed his options. He could try to reach his phone with his foot, but he’d probably have to slide down a bit for that, taking Marinette with him, and potentially waking her up. He could call Plagg, who was sleeping in his school bag, and ask him to do bring him his phone, but Plagg wouldn’t be happy at being woken up, and also he’d tease Adrien mercilessly if he saw him like this with Marinette of all people. There was also the risk that Marinette might wake up and see Plagg, which would be  _cat_ -astrophic.

_Or I could just go to sleep like this,_ he thought. A sensible part of his mind advised that girls and boys their age weren’t really meant to sleep next to each other, that it was kinda weird when you were just friends, and also they’d probably wake up sore. Adrien ignored that voice with practiced ease.

He gazed down at this friend he’d always admired a little more than the others. She was so open and honest, and yet there was a sort of mystery to her, one that drew him into her orbit and kept him there, wanting to know more. How could such a shy, clumsy girl also be so sassy and talented? How could she blush and stammer around him, her friend and classmate (although, come to think of it, he hadn’t heard Marinette stammer in weeks), yet joke and roll her eyes at his superhero self from the first day they met, like she’d known him forever?

_How can she be so damn cute?_ He thought, and also,  _Is it normal to kinda want to kiss a friend?_

_Probably,_ his denial replied.  _She’s like an adorable little kitten. Everyone wants to kiss little baby kittens._

_I dunno if I’d want to kiss one on the mouth, though,_ he countered, and immediately felt his face warm at the idea of kissing  _Marinette_ on the mouth.

_This is why dad doesn’t let me have sugar_ , he thought, tearing his eyes from Marinette’s damnable cuteness and back to the TV, where he had no idea what was going on.

_This has nothing to do with sugar,_ the Plagg-voice in his head piped up. _You’ve had a crush on this girl for months. You just don’t want to admit it because if you did, it would complicate everything._

“Shut up, Plagg,” Adrien muttered under his breath, before remembering that the real Plagg was asleep several meters away.

_Oh crap,_ he thought _. If that wasn’t Plagg, then that means I really do have a crush on Marinette!_

As soon as he thought it, he knew it was true. Adrien’s heart did an odd, stumbling skip, like the ones Marinette did sometimes when she tripped over her own feet and then caught herself and kept walking like nothing had happened. He glanced down at his friend - his  _crush_ \- one more time. Her hair had fallen into her face, and he tucked it gently behind her ear, noticing the smell of her shampoo and the pastries she’d devoured, and the way her skin felt against his fingertips, making them linger. The freckles that dusted her nose looked like stars, and his arm curled a little tighter around her body, all on its own.

_I’m screwed,_ he thought. _I don’t have a crush on Marinette. I’m completely and hopelessly in love with her!_


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Volpina strikes again, with a shiny new weapon. Marinette takes the shot for Adrien, leading to an important revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "This fluff is too sweet" you say? "You gotta stop being so cute", you say? BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR >:D
> 
> I kid, I kid. I love those comments, they make me melt into a rainbow puddle of happy feels and validation. Please don't stop sending them UwU 
> 
> You'd have gotten this angst no matter what, 'cause I woke up yesterday feeling dramatic af, so what follows was pretty inevitable. Of course, since it's me, I couldn't help adding a little bit of sweetness and a happy ending, so I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> TW for non-POV descriptions of someone in extreme pain and difficulty breathing, also POV descriptions of what is basically a shut-down with dissociation due to shock. Adrien also gets VERY angry.
> 
> *rubs hands together, cackling*

Alya sat in the wet grass, trembling with shock. She had just seen Lila grab an akuma _on_ _purpose_ , and was now realizing that not only had Marinette been right about her from the start; but also that Lila was far more dangerous than any of them had realized. How could she _do_ that? How could she possibly _want_ that? Was this the first time, or had she done it before? How many times? Was Lila _working for Hawkmoth?_

Belatedly, Alya’s reporter instincts kicked in, and she held her phone up to record what she saw.

“I just saw Lila Rossi get akumatized on purpose,” she said faintly to her future audience, following Volpina as she stalked towards Adrien and Marinette, who were backing away. The fake fox hero was holding something in her right hand - the akumatized object? Or a new weapon? Alya was too far away to tell. Adrien was saying something, looking angrier than Alya had ever seen him. Had he seen it? Or did he already know? Their photoshoot hadn’t been going well when Alya had dragged Marinette over to say hello.

“It’ll be good for you!” she’d told Marinette. “You want to concentrate on being his friend, right? So go talk to him! Friends don’t avoid each other!”

“I’m not friends with Lila,” Marinette had muttered through gritted teeth.

“That’s why I’m going to distract her,” Alya had said. “You won’t even have to talk to her, I promise.”

She’d had the best of intentions. She’d been  _thrilled_ when the photographer had asked Marinette to replace Lila for a bit, “just to see what happens.” She’d seen the nervous, happy smile Marinette had shot her, seen Adrien light up like clouds parting after the rain, seen the looks they exchanged as Vincent arranged them to look like a couple out on their first date.

And so had Lila.

Alya wished fervently that she had some way of contacting Ladybug. Vincent was cowering by a tree, babbling into his phone, presumably to the police - but the most they could do was evacuate the area until the superheroes turned up. For now, Alya was powerless to do anything, except film.

She crept closer, trying to catch their conversation. She hadn’t caught the akumatization, and everyone knew that peoples’ words while they were akumatized should always be taken with several pinches of salt - but it couldn’t hurt at least. And this time, Alya was determined to discover the truth about Lila, no matter the cost.

—

Volpina was done playing around. It was bad enough that Adrien was a moralizing, spineless little do-gooder with all the personality of a wet dishcloth. At least she had his father on her side. But apparently Vincent, their photographer, hadn’t gotten the memo.

Well, he’d learn. They all would. Lila had asked Hawkmoth to give her something new, something to make them suffer. When the purple cloud cleared on Volpina, there was a new and interesting toy in her hand.

Volpina advanced on the pair, who were wearing identical wary glares, and sneered when Adrien placed himself protectively in front of Marinette.

“Oh, how sweet,” she sang. “You two are so cute together! Vincent had _just_ the right idea, asking you to step in, Marinette. I’m _so_ glad he did!”

“I’m warning you,” Adrien growled. “Our deal still stands even now. Don’t you _dare_ hurt her.”

_Ooh_ , thought Volpina. Angry Adrien was kinda hot. Well, he had to have one redeeming quality.

It wasn’t enough to save him, though. Not by a long shot.

“Oh, I’ll be out of your hair in just a minute,” she cooed, “as soon as I’ve tested this puppy.” And she held up her new, pointy-ended, orange and white gun. It was about as cartoonish as every other akuma weapon she’d ever seen, but if it did what she thought it did, it would more than suit her purposes.

She leveled the weapon at Adrien’s chest. Her pulse quickened as she watched two pairs of eyes bulge in fear, saw the blood drain from two faces. She could almost taste their terror. It was intoxicating. Volpina smiled.

The shot hit its victim square in the chest, but Adrien was left unharmed. Volpina blinked in surprise. She’d shot at him point blank, and yet sometime between her decision to pull the trigger and the magical dart hitting its target, Marinette had managed to duck under Adrien’s arm and shove herself in front of him.  _Good reflexes_ , Volpina found herself thinking, as Marinette crumpled to the grass with a whimper.

“MARINETTE!” Adrien shouted, following her down and kneeling next to her. Volpina watched with interest as Marinette clutched her chest. The dart was gone, evaporated, but she seemed to be having trouble breathing.

Adrien cradled Marinette’s head, pushing her hair out of her eyes with hands that shook. Volpina’s face broke out in a genuine grin, but it faltered a little when Adrien snapped his gaze back to her.

“ _What did you do to her?_ ” he snarled. There was a wildness to his eyes she’d never have thought to find, something dark and chaotic behind that mild wheatgrass green. _Interesting_ , thought Volpina, even as her feet took a half-step back of their own accord.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, honestly for once. “But I’m sure she deserves it as much as you.”

She graced him with one last smile and, satisfied that they were both suffering now, leapt away to the nearest rooftop.  _Now to find Ladybug and Chat Noir and get those miraculouses,_ she thought as she ran _. Maybe I can convince Hawkmoth to give me the butterfly miraculous in exchange. That’d be fun._

—

“Marinette! Marinette, talk to me! Say something! _Please!_ ”

Marinette was in Adrien’s arms, but he wasn’t the one speaking to her. That was Alya. Alya, who had been talking to Lila right before she’d been akumatized, who might have seen where the akuma went.

Adrien knew this was important, somewhere beyond the livid horror that was electrocuting every other part of his brain. He knew it, but he didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. Right now, he couldn’t even care. Not when Marinette was trembling in his arms, her face screwed up in agony and wet with sweat and tears. Not when those tiny, high-pitched whimpers that accompanied her every gasping breath were slicing into his heart like tiny knives.

_Why did she do that?_

His first coherent thought since Volpina had left, taking with her the searing fury that had kept him from panicking, was one of bewilderment. Why would Marinette take the shot for him? He was her friend, sure, they’d gotten closer over the past few months, enough that Adrien’s lingering doubts over whether Marinette secretly disliked him for some reason had mostly been quelled. But from there to her jumping between him and a supervillain dart gun?

Speaking of which,  _how_ had she done it? One second she’d been standing behind him with her hand on his back in support, and the next… she’d been on the ground, at his feet.

Something dropped onto Marinette’s already wet cheek, next to where Adrien was holding her hair out of her eyes. At first he thought it might be Alya’s tears, or maybe his own, but then he felt another cold drop on the crown of his head. It was starting to rain. Adrien leaned further over Marinette so she wouldn’t get wet.  _Stupid_ , he thought to himself.  _Like that’ll help._

Someone was speaking to him, saying his name. He looked up and met Alya’s eyes through rain-streaked glasses - or they could have been tears. She had one hand on his shoulder and was trying to pull Marinette away from him with the other. Adrien’s grip tightened automatically.

“…let her breathe, Adrien! We need to lay her down and loosen her clothes! I know you don’t want to let go of her but she needs first aid! _Adrien!_ ” Alya shook him, and her words made their way slowly into his brain. He looked back down at Marinette, and slowly, carefully, set her down on the grass. Alya immediately started tugging at her clothes, pulling the jacket off her shoulders and even slipping one hand down the back of her t-shirt for some reason. Adrien saw Alya push Marinette’s bra straps down her arms and glanced away automatically, his mind completely blank. Part of him was screaming at him to _do something,_ but Adrien had no idea what.

“Adrien, are you with me? I’m going to talk to the emergency people now,” Alya was telling him. “Talk to her, try to get her to talk back, don’t let her fall asleep. Can you do that?”

Adrien nodded. Then, realizing she probably needed proof he hadn’t gone completely non-verbal, he said, “I can do that.”

Alya went to take the phone from Vincent and started reciting Marinette’s medical information, huddling under the jacket he held up so his phone wouldn’t get wet. Adrien leaned over Marinette and brushed the hair and rain out of her face again. She was still gasping, but the whimpers had faded, and now she was no longer red, but deathly pale. Her freckles stood out against her skin like pinpricks. Her eyes were open, unfocused.

“Marinette?” Adrien’s voice was suddenly hoarse, as though he’d already cried the flood of tears he could feel rising against his throat. “Marinette, can you hear me?”

Marinette nodded once.

“Does it hurt to speak?” he asked.

She nodded again.

“Does it hurt to nod?”

Another nod. Adrien gently pulled on one of the hands bunching her t-shirt, and held it in his own.

“Squeeze my hand once for yes and twice for no,” he said, citing every hospital drama his mother had ever watched. Marinette squeezed once, then twice. “Is that less painful than nodding?” One squeeze. “Don’t fall asleep, okay?” _Yes_. Really, she was squeezing all the time, and the answering squeezes felt more like spasms.

He didn’t know what else to ask her.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” he found himself murmuring. She replied with one long, hard squeeze, and Adrien found himself smiling bitterly through tears he hadn’t realized were there until they blurred his view of her face. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry, Marinette. All this is probably my fault. If I’d been a better model, Vincent wouldn’t have asked you to replace her, and she wouldn’t have…” his throat closed around the rest of his sentence.

The next whimper Marinette let out had something of a growl to it, and he felt her squeeze his hand twice. Her lips moved, trying to form words, and Adrien leaned closer to hear.

“…worth it,” she managed in a voice tight with pain. And then: “love you.”

Adrien’s eyes widened as he felt her other hand touch his cheek. He grabbed her hand and leaned into it, and at that moment, her gaze focused on his, tear-filled, agonized, and somehow,  _smiling_ .

_Worth it_ , her eyes said, like it was that simple. _Love you_ .

Adrien felt the flood inside him rising and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It slipped past his throat in the form of strangled sobs, and poured from his eyes, joining the raindrops on her freckles and magnifying them momentarily before they slipped away towards her temples. Her hand on his face twitched, drawing him ever so slightly closer, and Adrien buried his face in the crook of her neck and tried not to suffocate her while he cried his eyes out.

It felt like a storm passing. Adrien had no idea how long it lasted. Later, he’d remember a hand on his shoulder about to pull him away, cold against the colder cotton that clung to his skin, and Marinette’s fingers leaving his hair momentarily before returning. The unknown hand retreated - it was probably Alya - and he forgot the existence of other people again until the flood slowed to a trickle. Adrien sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve as he pulled away. Only then did he notice Marinette was no longer gasping. Her breath was still laboured, but slower and deeper, and she was watching him with more warmth than pain in her eyes.

_She loves me_ , he thought, incredulously, as he pressed a long kiss to her forehead.

“Are you feeling a little better?” Alya’s voice asked from somewhere nearby. Marinette squeezed Adrien’s hand, then croaked: “Yeah.”

Alya was speaking again, something about an ambulance.

“I hope Ladybug and Chat Noir show up soon,” said Vincent, joining them as he pocketed his phone. “How is she?”

_Chat Noir. That’s me. Oh, right. Oh, CRAP._

Adrien sat up suddenly. Of course. The sooner he found Ladybug, the sooner he’d be able to help her beat Volpina and use her miraculous cure. Marinette didn’t have to be in pain for long. He could help save her.

Cursing himself for not having remembered this sooner, he kissed Marinette’s knuckles, squeezed her hand one last time as they gazed at each other with new understanding, and stood up, letting her go.

“I’ll go look for them,” he said, already backing away. “Alya did you see where the akuma went?” Alya nodded, indicating her right earring. Adrien thanked her, turned, and broke into a sprint.

Five rain-slick rooftops later, Tikki caught up with him and told him Ladybug had been shot by Volpina as a civilian and they’d have to beat the villain without her. Chat Noir was shaken, but determined. The akuma fight lasted less than two minutes, with no puns, no words, and one brutally-aimed cataclysm.

By the time Tikki’s miraculous cure had swept through Paris and Lila had come to her senses on the steps of the Trocadero, Chat Noir was already gone. And when Adrien arrived back at the park, he ran straight over to where Marinette was sitting in the doorway of the ambulance and threw his arms around her in a crinkling crush of warmth and emergency blanket. She hugged him back just as hard, and Adrien nuzzled the skin right next to her ear and whispered the truth that had been echoing through his head louder and louder ever since he’d detransformed to go and find her:

“I love you, too.”


	18. Days 21 & 22: Magic and Outfit Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aspik and Multimouse experiment to see if they can change their suits. Multimouse's new suit is... fluffy. :3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There nearly wasn't an update for today, because Scrivener completely bugged and deleted my entire Adrinette April file, including this chapter. I cried. I raged. I typed a politely desperate email to Litterature and Latte, and then I raged some more. Then my husband came home from the food shopping and fixed it somehow.
> 
> All hail my husband, actual miracle worker and saviour of my sanity.
> 
> There's a good-sized dollop of spice at the end of this chapter, though it's still T-rated. Enjoy!

“So you’re saying we can _change our suits?_ ”

Aspik held his hands up appeasingly. “Um, I don’t know if we can  _change_ them,” he rectified. “My kwami told me the suit is what we want deep down, though, so I guess we do have some influence on it.”

Mari- no, Multimouse (though it was hard not to see her as Marinette right now) was gaping at him with a mixture of excitement and indignance. Aspik bit his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

“Why didn’t _my_ kwami tell me that?!” Multimouse exclaimed.

_Maybe so you wouldn’t take an hour before each transformation agonizing over how you want it to look?_ Not that Marinette would really do that, but he wanted to tease her  _so_ badly. Of course a future designer would be interested in changing her suit. 

But Aspik wasn’t supposed to know about that.

“Maybe it just never came up?” he suggested instead. “I don’t know if we can even change them now. It might be too late.”

Multimouse’s shoulders slumped, and her bottom lip stuck out in a pout. Her legs, dangling over the edge of the roof next to his, swung morosely. Aspik gripped the concrete, resisting the sudden urge to hug her, or poke her bottom lip back into her mouth, or pinch her cheeks, or something equally ridiculous and inappropriate. He had to do that a lot these days.

“We could… try it out,” he suggested.

Multimouse’s legs paused mid-swing. She glanced at him sidelong, biting her lip into a thin line as though it might help her contain her excitement.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked, her voice lower than usual, as though they were sitting in class, plotting mischief, instead of sitting on the edge of a deserted roof, plotting mischief.

“Well, as long as we’re careful about where we do it, and we don’t see each other detransform…”

Multimouse gasped. “Oh, we could experiment in case we ever needed different powers!”

“I’m not sure that’d work, or we wouldn’t need power-ups,” Aspik said, before remembering that Multimouse might not know what power-ups were, and he wasn’t sure Aspik was supposed to, either. “I-I mean -!”

“You’re right.” Multimouse tapped her chin with one dainty finger, oblivious to Aspik’s sigh of relief. “I guess maybe we shouldn’t play around with those when we don’t actually need them yet, either. Oh!” Inspiration lit her eyes like a sunbeam on the ocean. “What if we tried to make our suits look like civilian clothes?”

Aspik blinked. “But… wouldn’t we just look like our civilian selves, then?”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “We could ask for clothes that would allow us to blend in as civilians, without revealing our identities! Think of the possibilities, if ever we needed to go undercover or something!”

Aspik scratched the back of his neck as he considered this. Frustratingly, it was covered by his costume.

“I’m not sure I can think of an outfit that would do that,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter!” She said excitedly. “You said your costume is what you want deep down, right? So just concentrate on what you want - outfits that would allow us to blend in _and_ hide our identities! In fact,” she added, her hands dancing in the air as she spoke, _“you_ could do that, and I’ll try to ask for something more specific, just to see if it works!”

“And if it does, we could tell Ladybug,” Aspik agreed thoughtfully. “I don’t know if she knows about this.”

Multimouse scrambled to her feet, nearly falling off the roof as she did so, then held her hand out to him, beaming as though she hadn’t just scared him half to death. Aspik swallowed his heart, which had attempted to jump out of his throat a few seconds ago, and took her hand, more to pull her away from the gaping five-storey void than to help himself up.

He knew she didn't need protecting. He _knew_ that. Five storeys was nothing in a miraculous suit.

“Where to?” he asked. Multimouse often took the lead when they patrolled together, and she looked like she had a plan.

She bounced on her feet, and he realized he was smiling. Her excitement was contagious.

“I think I know just the place!”

—

The locker room in the sewers was currently deserted. Multimouse led him beyond the benches to the shower stalls, made sure they were dry, and pointed him to the one closest to the wall.

“I’ll go in the one at the opposite end of the row,” she said. “That way we can’t accidentally see each other’s civilian shoes under the wall.”

“Don’t take too long deciding what details you want,” Aspik teased, unable to stop himself.

Multimouse glared at him in mock-outrage for a second, before grinning. “Bold of you to assume I wasn’t planning the whole way here,” she said.

Aspik laughed as he entered the shower cubicle. It was surprisingly clean for sewer facilities - though perhaps that was  _why_ it was so clean. He locked the door, glanced around to make sure there were no cameras they’d overlooked, and took a deep breath.

“Sass, scales rest.”

The blue magic fizzed off him, materializing as a tiny floating snake god.

“What do you think, Sass?” Adrien whispered. “Is this really a good idea?”

“Bit late for doubtsss, don’t you think?” Sass smiled cryptically.

“There are no mirrors in this stall,” Adrien insisted. “I won’t be able to check how I look before I leave.”

“I always make sssure my wearersss cannot be identified,” Sass reassured him. “You don’t even have to think about that part. Exssperimentation isss not a bad idea, if it’sss with sssomeone you trussst.”

Adrien nodded. Even if Marinette did find out he was Aspik, she’d never tell.

“Do you need to recharge?”

“I wouldn’t sssay no to a sssnack,” Sass said, and Adrien fished a foil-wrapped square of cream cheese from the packet in his jeans pocket. Sass preferred eggs, but he was much less fussy than Plagg about taking alternatives.

A minute later, Adrien closed his eyes, focused hard on  _civilian clothes_ that would keep his  _identities secret_ , plural, because he trusted Sass, but you could never be too careful.

“Sass, scales slither!”

Magic flared and faded.

The first thing he noticed was that his clothes were a little looser - even compared to his civilian clothes. The second, upon opening his eyes, were the blue-tinted sunglasses on his nose.  _Clever_ , he thought. They weren’t wide enough to cover his entire face the way the mask did, but they probably hid his eyes - and their distinctive green colour - pretty well.

Aspik looked down to find he was wearing a brightly coloured army-patterned hoodie in the same yellow-green, teal, and slate blue as his previous suit. The many-pocketed combat pants were also slate blue, as was the cap he was wearing. He lifted a pants leg to get a better look at the trainers underneath. They bore the same bright army pattern as his hoodie.

Aspik grinned. Not bad for a civilian.

Now to take a look at himself in the mirror.

“Are you out yet?” he called, even though he knew he’d have heard if Multimouse had unlocked her door.

“N-no, not yet,” Multimouse said. Her nervous tone had him curious and a little bit anxious.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes! Fine! Everything’s fine,” she answered, too quickly.

Aspik unlocked his door and walked out, properly worried now.

“Did something go wrong?” he asked, just outside the door. He had no idea what could possibly go wrong during a transformation, but then, they'd never tried to modify their suits before.

“Nnno,” she replied, more hesitantly this time. “I got what I asked for, it’s just… it’s not, um, this is going to sound silly.” She ended her sentence with a nervous laugh.

Aspik let out a short sigh of relief. “Do you not like it?” he asked.

There was a pause.

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Multimouse replied slowly. “It’s just… it’s not my usual style, and Idon’treallyfeelconfidentwearingit,” she finished in a rush.

Aspik blinked.

“ _You_ don’t feel confident?” he asked, unable to keep the note of incredulity out of his voice. “But, Ma-Multimouse, you’re beautiful!”

There was a pause, during which Aspik realized he’d just candidly complimented her physical appearance without thinking about how it might be interpreted. Nino had been talking to him about that.

_Welp, too late_ , he thought. Besides, she seemed to need it right now.

“Wha- I - _me?_ You - you think?”

“Yeah, you could make any style work,” he said honestly. “Heck, I can see you rocking a trash bag.”

A long, slightly nervous giggle floated through the door, and Aspik found himself grinning.

“Now come out so I can see if you’re actually wearing a trash bag.”

“I’m _not_ wearing a trash bag,” Multimouse retorted, but she opened the door anyway, smiling under a pretty pink blush.

Pink was, in fact, a common feature of her new outfit. Like him, Multimouse wore a hoodie, though hers was light grey and fluffy, with pink lining. The hood, which she was wearing over her loose hair (Adrien sent silent thanks to Mullo), had mouse ears on it, and she, too, wore tinted sunglasses, although hers were pink. Pink shorts and ankle boots over soft grey tights completed the look.

“You’re so _cute!_ ” Aspik blurted out, at the same time as Multimouse breathed “You look so _cool!_ ”

Both of them blushed furiously.

“I-I mean,” Aspik stammered, “not that you don’t usually look cute, a-as Multimouse I mean, not as - I wouldn’t know what you look like as your civilian self, so…”

Multimouse let out a strangled giggle. “A lot more casual," she said. "I don’t dress like this, that’s for sure."

“You should,” said Aspik, before clamping his mouth shut.

Another nervous giggle. “Thanks.”

She took a step towards him, her bare hand reaching up to touch his hair. He noticed her fingernails were painted pink, and wondered if it was due to the miraculous magic or if she’d done that herself.

“Your hair’s blue,” she said quietly.

Aspik blinked. “It is?”

“Didn’t you see yourself in the mirror when you came out?” Multimouse asked. He saw one eyebrow appear over the rim of her glasses. Usually he only ever saw her eyebrows when she was being Marinette. He’d have to be _very_ careful not to call her by her civilian name while they were dressed like this.

_I was too worried about you to notice_ seemed somehow too sincere, so Aspik remained silent. Multimouse grabbed his shoulders and spun him around so he could see himself in the mirror. His hair was indeed blue - a light turquoise that was almost green.

“Huh,” he said, reaching up to tug on a strand of it. Not only was it blue, he noticed, it was also very Chat Noir-like in length and style. Sass had done well to conceal the distinctive blond and give him a hat.

Marinette -  _Multimouse_ \- had come to stand next to him, and was examining her own outfit more closely.

“Ooh, I have a belt to replace my skipping rope,” she said, pulling on the belt. It slid out of her shorts with more ease than a normal belt would, and seemed to lengthen as she stretched it.

Aspik patted himself down, looking for some civilian equivalent to his lyre. When he stuck his hand into the front pocket in his hoodie, his fingers brushed wood and strings, but something was radically different.

“Oh, you have got to be _kidding_ me,” he said, grinning as he pulled a full-sized, diamond-patterned ukelele out of the pocket, which had appeared to contain nothing a moment before.

“ _What!_ ” Multimouse squeaked, gasping with delight. “That’s way cooler than my belt!”

“More conspicuous, though,” Aspik remarked, plucking a few notes. “People will probably notice if I take a whole ukelele out of my pocket.”

“Well, you’re kinda conspicuous anyway,” Multimouse said, touching the bright-patterned sleeve of his hoodie, her lips curling in the sort of teasing smile she usually only gave Chat Noir. The one that reminded him of Ladybug.

Dressed as she was, it was even more effective than usual.  _So much cuteness should be illegal_ , Aspik thought, breathing slowly against the sudden quickening of his heart.

“I like bright colours,” he mumbled lamely. “Besides, you said I looked cool.”

Multimouse blushed again. “Well, I mean, you do,” she said. “And you do look like a civilian. But you will get noticed, still.”

“So will you,” Aspik replied, plucking at one of the ears on her hoodie. It was soft, and his hand lingered on it as he met her eyes, tinted violet by the glasses. His heart began to pound, pushing the breath out of him in a shaky rush. Her eyes widened fractionally, and Aspik realized they were standing quite close.

_Uh oh._

He said the first thing that popped into his head, his voice coming out softer than intended.

“Your hair’s down.”

Multimouse blinked and glanced down, allowing him to breathe a little.

“Oh, it’s actually only half down,” she said, reaching up and pulling her hood back to reveal two small buns on either side of her head, tied with pink ribbons which trailed down to join the loose hair that spilled onto the hood and brushed her neck.

_Dammit,_ Aspik thought.  _That’s even cuter!_

He could practically hear Plagg gloating from all the way in the future.

Multimouse looked back up at him, and he was caught again, unable to tear his eyes away from hers.

“Y-your eyes look blue,” she said, sounding inexplicably out of breath.

“How do you know they’re not?” he asked.

“W-well I - I guess… I don’t?”

Aspik’s hand was touching one of her ribbons. He had no idea when it had moved, nor who had given the order, and he found he didn’t much care. He was a little too distracted by the way the pink of her blush was deepened by her glasses, and how his heart was trying to beat its way out of his ribcage towards her.

“They’re green,” he murmured, noticing that her lipgloss was also pink.

“You shouldn’t be telling me that,” she murmured back.

His fingers ran slowly from the silk of her ribbon to the silk of her hair. He heard her breath catch as they brushed her jaw, trailing over a racing pulse, and his mind went completely blank. He had no idea when they’d gotten so close, when he had leaned down near enough to feel her breath on his. He felt her hands settle lightly on his chest and thought for one alarming split-second that she was pushing him away, but then he saw her eyes flutter closed as she leaned up on her tiptoes, and  _that_ undid him completely.

Her lips touched his, feather-light, for just a second before she pulled away. Her eyes met his again, sweet but hesitant - until whatever she saw in  _his_ eyes made them widen with want.

Then he kissed her, and kept kissing her, their glasses clicking, her lips burning his they slanted against each other needily, and he realized with sudden, electric clarity, that he'd been wanting this for much longer than he'd thought. His fingers tangled in her hair as his palm cupped her face, and his other hand wound itself around her waist, fisting the fluffy fabric of her hoodie. He ran his tongue along her bottom lip and she gasped, her mouth opening to let him explore it. Fire lit itself in the pit of his stomach, spreading rapidly through his veins to wherever they touched. He felt one of her hands snake up to the back of his neck, fingers threading through his hair, and he shivered, whimpering into their kiss. She tasted like the passionfruit macarons they’d shared on that rooftop less than an hour ago, and smelled like strawberry shampoo. She filled all of his senses, overwhelming him with her, and yet it  _still_ wasn’t enough, he wanted more of her, more more  _more_ …

“Ahem.”

They jumped apart like startled rabbits, spinning to stare at the intruder. A man in blue coveralls was standing in the doorway, holding a large bunch of keys and a mop. His mouth was a thin, flat line, but his eyes sparkled with amusement.

“S-s-sorry!” They both shouted.

“You do know there are plenty of better places in Paris for that sort of activity?” The man said with a perfectly straight face.

Multimouse’s blush was so strong, Aspik could see it without even looking directly at her. He nodded vigourously and grabbed her hand.

“Yes, um, well, we’ll be going then,” he stammered, pulling Multimouse along, past the man and towards the door. She seemed to be trying to hide behind him.

“I hear André the ice cream maker is next to Notre Dame!” he called after them as they hurried away.

Aspik waited until they were far enough to not be overheard. When he stopped and turned to Multimouse, she was biting the edge of her sleeve anxiously. He resisted the urge to pull it out from between her teeth, then reconsidered. He'd been resisting quite a few urges concerning Marinette and Multimouse lately, and look where that had gotten them. He pulled her wrist away gently, intertwining their fingers.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, biting her lip instead. Aspik’s eyes widened as he noticed how much pinker it was than before he’d kissed her. “Um… so…” she continued, then stopped. Her eyes flickered shyly from him to the wall to the water to him again. Aspik’s heart beat a fluttery tattoo on his sternum.

_I shouldn’t have kissed her as Aspik,_ he thought belatedly.  _I should have held back and asked her to date me as Adrien._ It was going to be  _so_ hard to see her at school without being able to kiss her.

_Welp_ , he thought back to himself.  _Too late._

“Wanna go get some ice cream?” he blurted.

Her eyes met his and held them, and the hope in them made him want to kiss her again.

“Okay,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case your wondering, yes, they totally left the belt and the ukelele in the locker room. The janitor put them in the lost and found box, though of course they vanished when Aspik and Multimouse detransformed.


	19. Days 23 & 24: Banana Suit Reveal and Kwami Visits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug and Chat Noir decide to swap their miraculouses every other week, to get used to the other's powers. Cue BananaBug interactions, kwami shenanigans, platonic fluff, and the silliest reveal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be cracky, but then it got serious in some places, so it's just kinda heartwarming instead.

“I can’t believe you actually wore that banana costume outside again.”

“Hey, you wore your bikerbug costume! Besides, how else are we going to exchange miraculouses without seeing each other?”

“Keep your voice down, people are sleeping! And it’s not a - ugh, never mind. At least I can move around in mine.”

“You underestimate me, M’lady.”

“Here are the earrings. Remember, Tikki’s favourite foods are chocolate chip cookies and macarons, but anything sweet will do. Don’t let her have pure sugar, though. And don’t tell her where it’s kept! She looks all adorable and wise and mostly she is, but…”

“Don’t worry, M’lady. After dealing with Plagg, I’m kinda used to chaos. Speaking of which, don’t let him eat feta cheese. He’ll want to, but the last time I gave him some, our whole house had to be evacuated.”

“Oh wow, okay, no feta cheese. Anything else I should know?”

“He’s fussy. He’ll complain if you give him anything that’s not proper, good quality cheese. And he’ll do anything to get it, so keep him well-fed. By which I mean, two wheels of camembert per day, _max_. I put three in the bag. He’ll ask for more, though, he always does. What else should I know about Tikki?”

“Hmm - oh! No aspartame! Don’t give her anything with artificial sweeteners in it, she gets _really_ upset.”

“No artificial sweeteners, got it. Is that everything?”

“I think so. We’re patrolling tomorrow anyway. Speaking of which, we should get some sleep while we still can.”

“Good thinking. ‘Night, Bugaboo.”

“Good night, Bananoir!”

“Hey!”

—

For the first three nights, Plagg was on his best behaviour. Marinette made him some tiny clothes, fed him little cheese-based pastries (though she was careful to make sure none of them contained any feta). She gave him lots of ear scritches and snuggles, which Plagg returned. He also got righteously angry on her behalf whenever Lila or Chloe said something snarky. It was refreshing not to be told to stay calm and be the bigger woman all the time. In fact, Plagg’s anger and schemes to get back at them did more to calm Marinette and cheer her up than Tikki’s well-meaning encouragement.

Of course, the peace couldn't last.

“Plagg! Have you been in my wool?”

“Well yeah, you know what cats a wool are like. You should have hidden it better.”

“PLAGG! I needed that wool!”

“To make another present for _Adrien?_ C’mon, just tell him you like him already. I promise you he’d like _that_ better than any present.”

“How would you know? You don’t know Adrien! And _don’t change the subject!_ ”

After an entire evening without head scritches, Plagg apologized and was grudgingly forgiven. Marinette couldn’t stay mad at him for long, not when he gazed up at her with those huge green eyes and those sad droopy ears.

—

Adrien was ecstatic the first week he got to keep Tikki. Not that he didn’t love Plagg - he missed the abrasive little shit already - but Tikki was so much more gentle and understanding. He smothered her with cookies and she rewarded him with many, many cuddles, and lots of good advice. He found that she was very good at talking him out of a sad mood without making him feel bad about it, and her gentle reminders to drink enough water and go to bed on time were far harder to ignore than his multitude of impersonal phone alarms.

So when he woke up on the very first morning to find vines growing out of his ceiling, he was surprised, but not mad.

“I’m so sorry!” Tikki apologized anyway. “I haven’t lived in such a huge space in a long time, so I got inspired! Usually I’m restricted to the balcony.”

“It’s okay,” Adrien reassured her as he gazed around his ceiling in wonder. “It’s actually kinda cool.”

“Really?” Tikki asked. “Ladybug hates it when I make things grow indoors. She says her parents can’t afford to repair the ceiling.”

“Well my dad can,” Adrien said. “Though I’m not sure how I’ll explain how vines grew in here overnight. We have a garden, though! You could grow whatever you want out there.”

Tikki gasped and clapped her nubby little paws. “Ohh thank you Adrien! That would be wonderful!”

—

“Did you draw cat ears on your bananoir costume?”

“And a tail! Look!”

A laugh. “Silly kitty. So, how was it?”

“Oh, Tikki’s amazing! Our garden is gorgeous now!”

“Did you family not suspect anything?”

“I doubt it. They almost never go out there any more. And even if they did, well, it’s spring. Growth is normal. How was Plagg, though? Did he whine the whole time?”

“Excuse you, Plagg was adorable. Mostly. He did tangle a bunch of wool I had.”

“Did he untangle it afterwards?”

“…No, I doubt he would have been able to.”

“You have to make him try. Otherwise he’ll think he can get away with just apologizing and looking cute.”

“…”

“That’s what he did, isn’t it? And you forgave him.”

“He had those big green kitty eyes! How could I stay mad at those?!”

“ _I_ have big green kitty eyes! When I’m transformed at least. You never have trouble staying mad at me!”

“That’swhatyouthink and besides, you’re too big to be cute.”

“I heard that.”

“Stop grinning like that, stupid cat.”

“I can’t, it’s the costume!”

“I can hear you smiling!”

They continued to bicker and tease until Officer Roger heard them, shone his torch into the alley, saw the banana costume grinning back at him, screamed, and ran.

The next day, Sabrina told the class that her dad had spotted an akuma that transformed people into bananas.

—

“Plagg, is this cataclysm dust on my balcony?”

Plagg hummed noncommittally as he drifted towards the skylight.

“Plagg.”

“Look, I’m the kwami of chaos and destruction! I can’t _not_ destroy stuff! Besides, it’s just trash. It _needs_ to be destroyed. I’m doing my bit for the environment.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. “Literal trash? From the trashcan?”

“Yeah. I try to keep to non-recyclables.”

Marinette’s expression became thoughtful for a second.

“Do you think maybe we could use your cataclysm power to destroy even more trash than that? Like, go to a garbage dump and just cataclysm it all?”

“Ugh, that’d be so much _work_. Besides, knowing you, you’d wanna make sure there were no animals in it, and that takes a degree of precision you don’t yet have. Maybe leave this one to Chat Noir.”

Marinette nodded, deciding to bring it up next patrol.

—

“Adrien, I made you a present!”

Adrien looked up glumly from his phone. “A - another one?” he asked, before adding, “Thank you.”

“Well, you looked like you needed cheering up.” Tikki beamed proudly. She swooped under Adrien’s bed and brought out what appeared to be a tall, shapeless tower of sticky tack and lint.

“Wow,” said Adrien. “Is it me again?”

“Yes! Well, you as Misterbug. That’s why I picked red and black lint this time.”

Adrien squinted at the tiny statue. He could just about tell where his head was supposed to be because it was slightly cleaner than the rest.

“Don’t you like it?” Tikki asked, wringing her tiny paws.

“Oh, no, I do!” said Adrien. “I’m sorry Tikki, I’m just upset. My dad just got back to me about the study group.”

“Oh, what did he say?”

“He said that if I need help from other students then public school obviously isn’t good for me, and if they need help from me, then it’s a waste of my time.”

Oh,” said Tikki, her antennae drooping. “You know, I’m sure Plagg’s told you this -”

“Yeah, Plagg hates my father.”

“Well, to be honest, I don’t blame him. Adrien, I wouldn’t blame _you_ if you hated you father, given how he treats you! Not that I’m saying you should,” she hastily added. “But, well… I just hope you know that he’s wrong to treat you this way. That it’s not normal.”

Adrien was silent for a moment. People had told him this in more or less roundabout ways, but mostly it was either Plagg, Nino, or Alya, and he’d always felt like they just didn’t like his dad for their own reasons. Tikki was the closest thing to an adult to ever say it, which meant that Adrien had to think about it seriously, and decide what to do with that information.

“It’s just… when my mother died, he -”

“Grief is tough, but it doesn’t give anyone the right to neglect or isolate their child,” Tikki interrupted. The sternness in her voice surprised him, even tempered as it was by her paw stroking the back of his hand. Her eyes were huge with concern. “Adrien, you don’t have to do anything right now. You’re still a child, dependent on your father. I don’t want to pressure you into trying to rebel, or emancipate yourself, or anything drastic like that. I just don’t want you to blame yourself, or keep making excuses for him.”

Adrien tried to protest again, but his throat closed around the words. His eyes grew hot and blurry, and he covered them with his hands. Tikki nuzzled his cheek.

“I’m sorry, Adrien,” she murmured.

Adrien shook his head. Tikki was right. He sniffed and wiped his eyes.

“But,” he said, his voice wobbly with tears, “the problem is, when I start thinking about it like that, I get so - so - _mad_ , and and -”

“Good! That’s fine, Adrien! It’s normal to feel angry sometimes! You just have to find productive ways to channel that anger!”

Adrien cupped his hands in front of him, and Tikki settled in them. “How?” he asked.

“You already do fencing and a lot of other physical activity during patrols and akuma fights. Ideally, you’d channel your anger into working towards a solution.”

“I don’t have a solution, though, Tikki,” Adrien mumbled hopelessly. “I’ve tried everything.”

“I don’t mean a solution to get your dad to treat you like a son and not his property,” Tikki said. “You can't control his behaviour. I mean a long-term solution. One that will get you out from under his thumb.”

Adrien’s eyes widened. “What are you thinking of?”

Tikki smiled up at him. “Tell me, Adrien, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

—

“You’re quiet tonight, Kitty.”

“Oh, I’m just tired. Why, are you worried about me, Buggaboo?”

“Yeah, I am. The bags under your eyes are so big I can see them through the Bananoir costume.”

“Since when does your Bikerbug helmet give you x-ray vision?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

A sigh. “Tikki’s…”

“Oh no, did she get into the sugar?”

“No! No, actually, she’s been really sweet. Ha! I didn’t even do that on purpose.”

“Oh. So, what happened?”

“…Well, I can’t tell you much without revealing my identity, but she gave me some really good advice. Family stuff, and future stuff. And I’ve been thinking about it, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

…

“I know we can’t talk to each other about our problems much, but you know I’m here for you if you need anything, right?”

“I know, Bug.”

…

“We should hug more often.”

“We hug by accident at least once per akuma.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Haha stop! No tickling! We’ll summon Officer Roger again!”

—

“Don’t,” said Plagg. “Just say you have no idea how this happened. Let it be one of life’s mysteries!”

“That’s not - Plagg, I’m not getting the blame for this. I didn’t make those cheese danishes, and I sure as hell didn’t make the cheese in them mysteriously disappear.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “The problem, Plagg, is that my parents are going to lose customers. I got you four wheels of camembert, can’t you just eat those?”

“You don’t have a minifridge to keep it nice and cool,” Plagg grumbled.

“Look, I don’t know what it’s like at Chat Noir’s house, but we are not rich,” said Marinette sternly. “You’re going to have to learn the value of money.”

“Oh please, I’ve been around since before money was invented. I know how it works!”

“So you know I won’t be able to buy you more cheese if my parents lose their livelihoods.”

That shut him up.

—

Adrien arrived downstairs that morning to find Nathalie scowling into her coffee. Immediately his heart dropped. Nathalie had three expressions: slight smile, slight frown, and neutral. Something was terribly wrong.

“Nathalie?” he asked cautiously, approaching the table. “Is something the matter?”

Nathalie took a very, very deep breath, schooled her expression to a slight frown, and said: “The sugar’s gone.”

Adrien blinked. “What?”

Nathalie’s eye twitched. “This morning the chef woke up to find the entire stock of sugar gone. Just four empty packets on the shelf.” She stared at Adrien. “Do you know anything about it?”

Adrien had a feeling he did know something about it, but it wouldn’t do to tell Nathalie that.

“No, I don’t,” he said. “I sounds like some kind of weird prank.”

Nathalie stared at Adrien for several long seconds before scowling into her coffee again.

“No, of course not,” she muttered. “You wouldn’t deprive yourself of what little sugar you’re allowed. Unless-” Her eyes snapped back to Adrien, roaming over his clothes, specifically the pockets. As though she suspected him of hiding sugar cubes about his person.

“I swear it wasn’t me, Nathalie,” Adrien said. “I depend on you too much to mess with your coffee.”

Nathalie’s eyes narrowed for a second, and then she nodded. She turned back to get coffee, took a deep breath, and downed the rest of it with a grimace.

—

“My socks are going missing, and I think Plagg might have something to do with it.”

“Oh, he does that. Makes a nest out of them. The easiest thing is just to give him the odd ones once you’ve worn them.”

“You wear odd socks?”

“All my socks are white, so it’s not noticeable.”

“And wait - you said, once I’ve worn them?”

“Yeah, preferably after P.E. or something. He likes the cheesy feet smell.”

“I shouldn't be surprised, but ew.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So, how was Tikki? I missed her.”

“…She got into the sugar.”

“Oh no! What happened?”

“The garden turned into a jungle, but I managed to wake her up and get her to un-grow it before my family noticed. Luckily my father was still asleep, and Na- um, the other person who could have seen it was too busy wondering who could have emptied four kilos of sugar.”

“Oh, four kilos isn’t even that bad. Once she ate eleven and turned our whole block into a rainforest overnight. People thought there was an akuma. I had to show up as Ladybug and undo it myself.”

A laugh. “Wait, eleven kilos of sugar? How much sugar does your family eat?”

“Ohhh, haha, we’re - my parents just like to have lots of food in stock.”

—

Long term plans were great, but Tikki conceded that it couldn’t hurt to rebel a  _little_ bit. Especially with something as harmless and wholesome as a study group.

Of course, when you invited your entire friend group over to your bedroom / indoor amusement park, not much studying was going to happen. And when Kim opened the closet door thinking it was the bathroom and decided to go in and explore instead of swimming, well, him coming out wearing the Bananoir costume was inevitable. Predictable, even.

Marinette  _recognizing_ it, however…

“Adrien, I need to talk to you for a second.”

She was tugging at his sleeve frantically, pale as ice. Kim was dancing in the costume to Nino’s music, yelling “stay peachy!” while everyone else laughed. Adrien had told them he’d stolen it from a TV set (which was true, after all) and was trying to think of a different disguise to wear to the next kwami exchange meeting.

As soon as he saw her face, he knew he’d messed up. Of course Marinette would recognize the costume!  _She’d seen Chat Noir hide in it as Multimouse!_

“Ummmmmm,” Adrien said, trying desperately to think of a lie that might fool _Marinette_ , the first person in class who’d somehow seen through Lila. Marinette pulled him away from the group, who weren’t paying attention anyway. Her eyes were still riveted on the costume, and her voice was low and urgent.

“Adrien, I need to know why you have a Bananoir costume in your closet.”

Adrien’s brain bluescreened. Too much effort.

“I, um.” He gulped, took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. At this point, it was probably best to tell the truth and beg her to keep it a secret. Ladybug had trusted Marinette with a miraculous after all, and she’d been amazing, even if she had taken it off too soon. He trusted her.

“ _Adrien!_ ” she hissed, turning to him.

“Listen Marinette, I -”

The revelation hit Adrien like a brick the second their eyes met. He looked at Marinette,  _really looked_ at her - her eyes, her hair, the dusting of freckles that stood out against her shock-pale skin - as her last sentence replayed itself in his mind.

“Marinette, why did you call it a Bana _noir_ costume?”

The panic blossoming on her face was all the confirmation he needed.

“B-because! …it, has, um, Chat Noir ears and a tail on it?”

“Kim hasn’t turned around yet. You haven’t seen the tail.” He was grinning, _beaming_ with happiness. This was it. She was here! Ladybug was here, in his room, and _she was Marinette! Ladybug was Marinette!_

Marinette was panicking.

“Oh no oh no this is bad I’ve only been the g- in charge for eight months and I’ve already failed this badly-”

She was pacing up and down in a small, tight circle, her hands waving frantically in the air. Adrien grabbed them as she paced towards him, forcing her to stop.

“M’lady, calm -”

“ _Don’t call me that here!_ ”

“Sorry, you’re right. Marinette, please calm down. I’m sorry you found out like this -” a lie, and both of them knew it, but it _was_ his fault, “- I _paw_ \- uh, promise everything will be fine. We’ll just have to be extra careful.” He glanced towards the group. Alix was calling him, asking if she could draw on the Bananoir suit. He called a confirmation back, and murmured “We probably shouldn’t talk about this here."

Marinette was giving him that sweet, vulnerable look Ladybug gave Chat Noir on the rare occasions when she needed him to comfort her. It was a little shyer than usual, but there was something sharp and analyzing, too, in the way her eyes roamed over his entire face, connecting the dots. It made him feel a little self-conscious.

“Hey lovebirds!” Kim shouted. “Come get peachy with us!”

The pair jumped, and Adrien snatched his hands away from hers. Ladybug hated when they were mistaken for lovers, and he didn’t think her knowing his identity would change that. He gave an embarrassed wave to the group and started towards them, but as he glanced back, he saw Marinette’s expression and stopped.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked. The shock and panic seemed to be gone, or under control at least. The sadness was more alarming. It didn’t make sense.

She looked up at him, then past him, towards the group, then down, at her open hands.

“Marinette?”

Marinette blinked, as though coming out of a trance, and plastered an awkward smile on her face. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just a little freaked out still.”

Adrien thought there was probably more than that, but now wasn’t the time to talk about it. They’d have plenty of time later that evening. Hell, they had the rest of their lives.

“Let’s just have some fun for now,” he said. “Wanna see if you can still beat me at Ultimate Mecha Strike? I’ve been practicing.”

Marinette took a deep beath, sighed it out slowly, and nodded, smiling for real this time. Adrien smiled back and grabbed her hand, pulling her towards the party.

\--

Under Adrien's bed, Tikki and Plagg squabbled briefly over whose fault it was.

"Isn't it good that they know now? It's just the two of them. They need all the help they can get," Plagg said, trading denial for diversion.

Tikki sighed. "I knew things were bad from the way you described them, but yes. Adrien needs a human friend, preferably one who can sneak into his room without having to bribe his bodyguard."

"Told you you'd mother him."

"It's hard not to! Besides, I mother _all_ my bearers. It's in my nature."

"Just like it's in my nature to corrupt mine. Guess who left that stinkbomb in Lila's locker yesterday?"

" _I knew it!_ I _knew_ I recognized that smell!"

"Marinette was so jittery about us being found out, but even she agreed it was worth the look on Lila's face."

"It wasn't worth the whole school being evacuated!"

"Pretty sure both our bearers would disagree, Sugarcube."

"Well, I'm just glad they have each other now, in and out of the costume."

Plagg smiled and lay back in his nest of old socks. He'd snuck some of Marinette's in, to add variety.

"You and me both, Tikki. You and me both."


	20. Days 25 & 26: Cheek Kiss and Sick Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifteen years after they first got their miraculouses, Marinette and Adrien are married with four kids. They're also still fighting Hawkmoth's akumas - though the identity of their archenemy has changed. Marinette wakes up sick one morning, leaving Adrien to manage four young children, a job, and both of their superhero duties.
> 
> Of course, he nails it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a bunch of headcanons for this, they are here: https://trashcatontherooftop.tumblr.com/post/616448394003644416/post-family-headcanons
> 
> A note re: Emma's teasing of Sophie: "Soso" would be a common nickname in French for any child whose name starts with that syllable. "Sot" or "sotte" depending on gender, means stupid / an idiot. It's not unheard of for parents to say their children "fait le sot" / "fait la sotte" when they're misbehaving in certain parts of France. Emma is making fun of Sophie's name AND calling her stupid.

“38.6 degrees. You have a fever,” said Adrien, brandishing the thermometer like a judge’s gavel. “You need a sick day.”

“I’m my own boss. I don’t get sick days.” Marinette croaked, glaring at the thermometer as though it had betrayed her.

“You pay for your own sick days, there’s a difference. Besides, you just handed in that wedding dress yesterday, and you don’t have anything urgent until next week.”

“I have three appointments with new clients today!”

“And you think turning up with a fever and a runny nose is going to make a good first impression?” Adrien cocked an eyebrow with a good-natured smirk. She hated it when he did that. It meant he knew he was right.

“What about the kids?” she asked, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid staying in bed all day. “I wanted to get started on Emma’s princess dress. She has that birthday party on Wednesday afternoon.”

“I’ll buy her the one from the euro shop she’s been pestering us for.”

“ _Don’t you dare!_ ”

“Marinette,” said Adrien reasonably. “I know you want her to have the best of everything, but sometimes you gotta give yourself a break. It won’t kill her to have a cheap nylon dress.”

“She’ll rip it in like thirty seconds,” Marinette moaned.

“Good. That way she’ll learn the value of good quality clothes. Isn’t that what you want?”

Marinette grumbled something incoherent as she slunk back under the covers. Adrien smiled. Marinette hadn't so much changed as become more herself over the years, and he loved her for it. He stroked her hair back to kiss her, but she pushed him away.

“No kisses,” she said. “We can _not_ afford to both be ill at the same time. What if there’s an akuma?”

Adrien laughed, and was about to reply, when a loud bang and a shout echoed up from the living room. He poked his head over the mezzanine to see which dark-haired, big-eyed imp was destroying their home this time.

“Sophie!” He cried. “We talked about this! No fencing indoors!”

—

It took all of twenty minutes to pack lunch boxes into school bags, ensure everyone had their shoes on, wrestle Louise into the baby carrier on his back, settle Hugo on his hip, shuffle them all out of the flat and into the tiny, ancient lift that smelled like dust and metal, and then out of it again, transfer the two toddlers to the twin pram downstairs, stuff the baby carrier into the basket underneath it, maneuver the pram out the door, make sure Sophie and Emma were holding tight to either side of it, and set off down the narrow pavement, ignoring the dirty looks of passersby who didn’t have four kids.

Twenty minutes wasn’t so bad. In winter it was closer to forty.

Luckily, school was just five minutes away, and the twins’ babysitter lived one block after that. Adrien’s first lecture was at 10:30 this morning, which gave him time to stop at the bakery and bring Marinette some breakfast before he took the metro to work.

“Adrien! Son! How are you this morning?”

Adrien never failed to flush with pleasure whenever Tom called him that.

“I’m great” he said, leaning over the counter to kiss Tom and Sabine hello. “Marinette’s got a fever, though. I made her take the day off.”

“You’re on your own with the kids today?” Sabine asked, frowning. “Do you need us to babysit?”

“We should be fine, but I’ll call you if something comes up,” Adrien promised.

“She’s taking the _whole_ day off, right?” Tom asked, worried as well.

Adrien nodded. “I’m taking over her duties, and I’ve asked Alix and Mylène to fill in, just in case.” He gently patted the shirt pocket where Tikki lay hidden.

Sabine smiled, reassured, and handed him a large bag of pastries, along with a rectangular box.

“Passionfruit, your favourite,” she said. “On the house.”

“Sabine, you know you don’t have to -”

“I want to,” his mother-in-law insisted, leaning up to pat his shoulder. Her hand only reached his upper arm. “I know Marinette doesn’t have time any more. Besides, you’re going to need the extra energy today.”

Adrien chuckled ruefully. He couldn’t deny that.

—

“ _Sophie la so-sotte! Sophie la so-sotte!_ ” Emma sang.

“SHUDDUUUP!” Sophie’s scream echoed in the narrow hall.

“Emma, what did we say about being mean,” Adrien sighed, unlocking the door to the flat nine hours later and regretting having eaten all his macarons at work. He really could have used one right now. If he could find time to sneak off and eat it, that is.

His eldest released the long-suffering sigh of one whose fun has been tragically cut short. If Adrien didn’t know any better, he’d have bet she’d learned it from Plagg.

“Sorry, Sophie,” she intoned, sounding not sorry at all as she pushed past everyone else, plopped her brother in the playpen, and returned to dump her school bag and shoes unceremoniously next to the front door. Adrien bit back a grin.

He ushered Sophie inside, sat Louise in the playpen next to her brother, and moaned as she immediately began to cry in protest.

“I can play with them,” Emma volunteered.

“Homework first,” Adrien said firmly, and Emma’s lip stuck out in a pout that looked a lot like her mother’s. She shuffled back to her school bag in an slump so exaggerated, her hands dragged on the floor. Adrien chuckled and turned back to Louise, activating all the electronic toys in the hope she’d be distracted enough to allow him to make dinner.

“Need any help?”

Marinette’s voice was less hoarse than it had been this morning, and she wasn't as pale. She’d wrapped herself up in a huge woolly cardigan, but Adrien was pleased to see that she was still in her pyjamas.

“You should stay in bed,” he said, though his heart warmed at the sight of her. “Don’t want any of them catching your cold.”

Marinette grumbled in agreement over the moans of protest of one Sophie Dupain-Cheng, who had thrown herself at her mother the second she’d appeared in the stairwell.

“You don’t have to make dinner, by the way,” Marinette said. “Alya came by with leftovers. They’re in the fridge.”

All the children, including the toddlers who arguably shouldn’t have known what this meant, cheered loudly as Adrien sighed in relief.

“She also left you two presents,” Marinette said, pointing to the dining table. Sophie and Emma practically teleported there, everything else forgotten. Emma gasped as she pulled out a green nylon princess dress, and Sophie squealed at the Ladybug costume. Adrien shot a glance at Marinette. She was holding her head in one hand, but she was smiling.

—

“So, how did it go?” Marinette asked her husband, threading her fingers through his hair as he lay in her lap on the bed.

“It was horrible,” he moaned. “The akuma attack came right when I was walking from the babysitter to the school. I had to leave the Louise and Hugo in the bakery.”

Marinette hissed sympathetically. “Yeah, I heard Sophie talking about it. It sounded like she’d  _seen_ it.”

“The victim was one of the kids in Emma’s year,” he said. “Emma said she doesn’t know him. Luckily he was only targeting teachers, and we managed to purify the akuma quickly, but it was total chaos for about ten minutes before I managed to show up.”

“So that’s why they were so excited this evening,” Marinette murmured.

“Oh, by the way, here -” Adrien sat up and removed the earrings, poking Tikki awake in his shirt pocket as he passed them over to Marinette. Tikki drifted sleepily over to her nest in Marinette’s bedside table, stopping to nuzzle both of them along the way. Plagg followed her, and both kwamis phased through the wooden drawer.

“Were the girls safe?” Marinette asked anxiously as she put the earrings back in her own ears. “Did their teachers get hurt?”

“Sophie’s teacher got hit by the akuma and started throwing toys about. Sophie loved it. I actually heard her complaining when I purified the akuma.”

“Did she see you?” Marinette asked.

“Not close up. Besides, you know the miraculous magic keeps our identities safe.”

Marinette sighed. “Did Tikki do any misleading this morning?”

“Not that I know of,” Adrien said. “Honestly I was too busy trying to get everyone to school and daycare on time to notice. Sophie does think Mme Ducas on the ground floor might be Ladybug, though.”

Marinette’s chuckle ended in a dry cough.

“Did you take your medicine?” Adrien asked her.

“Yes, mother,” she said, poking him in the arm. He booped her nose, and she scrunched it up. It was still cute fifteen years later.

“I thought Sophie thought Kagami was Ladybug,” Marinette remarked.

“No, that was last week. ‘Tsurugi-sensei is too boring, like papa and maman,' I believe were her exact words.”

Marinette giggled. "What did Kagami think of that?"

"Oh, she didn't hear it, otherwise I'm sure she'd have taken it as a challenge," Adrien said. He leaned over towards Marinette, but she backed away.

"I'm ill, remember?"

Adrien pouted. "But I haven't had any kisses  _all day_ ," he whined, doing an annoyingly good impression of what could have been any one of their children.

Marinette, to his surprise, hesitated. She was giving him that look, like she couldn't believe how lucky they were to have each other, the one that made Adrien's heart swell and squeeze all at once. He loved her so much that sometimes it was almost painful.

Her hand came up to cup his face, and he didn't dare move as she stroked his cheek with her thumb. The gesture was so commonplace in their relationship that his breath caught as soon as she reached for him. It was almost always followed by a kiss.

Sure enough, Marinette leaned in, her eyes fluttering closed. Adrien's head tilted slightly in anticipation, but her lips landed on his cheek instead, lingering for a second, before she rested her forehead on his temple.

Surprise and heat and a little bit of frustration manifested in a low chuckle.

"What? I don't want you getting sick," she murmured close to his ear.

"I know. Get better soon," he replied, reaching up to touch brush the hair out of her eyes with a tender smile.

She picked up her book and patted her lap, and Adrien lay back down so she could card her hands through his hair again. He drifted off to the sound of her humming a lullaby. His last coherent thought was that if he could do everything over, the good and the bad, from the day he'd gotten his miraculous, he wouldn't change a single thing.

  
  



	21. Days 27 & 28: Naps and Care Package

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien realizes that he and Marinette are connected in a strange way. Indeed, whenever she falls asleep in class, it makes him sleepy, too.
> 
> In which Adrien and Marinette are sleep-deprived babies and Alya is the honorary older sister they need in their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic follows Day 2: #marinettechallenge, and no, I'm sorry, but Adrien does not get a clue about his feelings for her. It's tooth-rotting fluff but it's platonic. Enjoy! :D

  
  


The first time he noticed it was with Rose and Juleka. They were all sitting in the park after a picnic, and Adrien was getting up to leave for a piano lesson. He crossed the circle of friends, waving goodbye, and was forced to step over a pair of pink-clad legs in his path: Marinette had fallen asleep in Rose's lap, and Rose was sitting in the circle of Juleka's arms.

"Shh!" Rose whispered conspiratorially, stroking Marinette's fringe away from her forehead. "Don't wake the baby!"

Adrien laughed at that, and made a show of tiptoeing away. They looked comfy, all cuddled up together. He yawned as he got into the car, and then frowned. It was 4pm. Why was he yawning?

After that, he noticed it all the time – not Marinette's tendency to fall asleep during the day, he'd known about that since the #marinettechallenge. What he noticed now was that seeing Marinette asleep made Adrien sleepy, too. Especially when she was sleeping on somebody else.

Usually it was Alya – at their desk, in the library, even once at lunch – and Alya never failed to get a selfie of them both, although she didn't publish all of them to Instagram. Sometimes it was Rose, or Juleka, or Mylène, and Adrien logically concluded that Marinette only fell asleep on other girls.

Then one day, while they were sitting on the school steps, Alya had to get up to go to the bathroom. Instead of waking Marinette, she simply slid out from under her best friend with what looked like practiced ease, and transferred her weight to Nino. Adrien rubbed his eyes and frowned, feeling a little jealous.

"What?" said Nino, transferring his cap to Marinette's head to keep the sun out of her eyes.

Adrien's tired brain fumbled for words. "You – she – she didn't even wake up," he said lamely.

Nino grinned. "You should have seen her when she babysat Chris and the twins last week. We got back to find _her_ sleeping while the kids drew on her face."

Adrien bit back a snort. "Poor Marinette," he said.

Nino's grin faded a little as he watched his best friend watching Marinette. "You okay, bro? You're looking tired yourself."

Adrien's eyelids were growing heavier by the second.

"That looks so comfy," he mumbled enviously, drawing a startled laugh from Nino. The laugh woke Marinette, and as she rubbed her eyes and thanked Nino for his hat, some of the sleepiness seeped away from Adrien, too.

"It's like we're linked somehow," Adrien said to Plagg that evening as he flipped through his gallery to find the photo of them both sleeping on the Startrain – the only surefire way to fall asleep in less that an hour. These days, it barely took five minutes.

"Because you've conditioned yourself to sleep whenever you see her sleeping," Plagg said, pointing at the photo. "You do realize that staring at the same photo of a girl until you fall asleep every night is kinda creepy and sad?"

Adrien scowled at Plagg.

"It's not every night," he grumbled. "Sometimes you purr me to sleep."

"Only at first," Plagg pointed out. "You think I haven't noticed that you've stopped waking me up to transform in middle of the night? Unless you've somehow snuck sleeping pills in without Nathalie finding out, you're using some other method to get back to sleep."

"Would you prefer it if I woke you up?"

Plagg's eyes widened as he shook his head, and he quickly settled into Adrien's collarbone and started to purr.

After a while, Plagg spoke again.

"Not creepy," he rumbled through the purr. "Just sad."

Adrien, half-asleep already, ran his thumb across the soft, gently vibrating fur between Plagg's ears.

"Wuh?"

"You wouldn't need to remember what human contact feels like if you got more of it from your family," Plagg stopped purring to explain. "You're not creepy, you're trying to cope."

Adrien was suddenly wide awake. He couldn't deny the truth in Plagg's words, and the bitterness in them seemed to infect him like mould. It took a combination of Plagg's purring, the Startrain photo, and nearly an hour of mindfulness exercises to get him to sleep that night.

Something changed in him that night, like he'd lost a part of his innocence and taken a step towards adulthood. It didn't feel exciting or even good, but it did feel necessary. From then on, Adrien forced himself to recognize his sleepy connection to Marinette for what it surely was: a need for human contact. A need that stemmed from deprivation.

Adrien couldn't hug his father more if he never saw him, and Nathalie was not a hugger, so he decided to search for it elsewhere. He took to hugging Nino as part of their morning greeting, a modification on their usual fist-bump-hand-clap-thumb-clasp-shoulder-bump that Nino accepted with enthusiasm. Alya noticed this, and began to hug Adrien too - the first girl to do so in years without trying to kiss or simper over him, which Adrien appreciated.

It wasn't quite enough, however, and Adrien had no idea how to initiate more physical contact with other people without it seeming weird.

Marinette, meanwhile, continued to use her friends as pillows, and Adrien found that it was far too late to decondition himself of the fatigue that found him whenever he saw her sleeping. He caught himself keeping a subconscious tally of the people she fell asleep on: himself that one time on the Startrain, Nino twice, Rose and Juleka twice, Mylène once, Ivan once if you counted that he'd carried her to Juleka's bed. It happened to Alya about once every two days. Surprisingly, though, Adrien had never seen Marinette fall asleep on Luka: his guitar always seemed to get in the way.

The day it happened to Kagami, his usual sleepiness was initially overruled by something else entirely. Maybe it was the look of startled awe on Kagami's face, or the way her hands hovered above the floppy heap of girl deposited in her lap by Alya, that made Adrien's heart want to float out of his chest and join them. Adrien didn't think he'd ever seen Kagami blush, even during their short-lived relationship, but here she was, cheeks at least as pink as Marinette's got when she stammered. Kagami's hands eventually settled, one on Marinette's shoulder, the other on her hair, as gently as if she were made of spun sugar, and this time Adrien was the one who took his phone out to take a photo.

"Don't share that," Kagami said.

"I won't," Adrien promised. He turned his phone to show her the photo. "I just thought you two looked cute."

Kagami's blush deepened, and she glared at anyone who approached them until Marinette woke up on her own, an hour later. Adrien slowly got used to the sight of them – they were so _cute_ – and had to go and rehearse with Kitty Section to avoid falling asleep himself.

 _Still_ , Adrien thought later as he sat on the deck, flipping between the Startrain photo and the one of Kagami gazing down at Marinette with a softness he hadn't known she possessed. _I wish Marinette would fall asleep on me again._

"What was that, Sunshine?" said Alya behind him.

Adrien froze. Alya seemed to take the word "bro" more literally than Nino, and often treated Adrien in a way he associated with siblings. Usually he enjoyed this, but he wasn't sure he'd appreciate it much right this second.

Sure enough, she threw her arms over his shoulders the way she sometimes did to Marinette, somehow making herself heavier than she really was as she nudged his head out of the way so she could see what he was looking at.

Heat touched his cheeks, and he heard the grin in her voice as she gasped and murmured "Ohhh, you're _jealous_!"

"Am not," Adrien muttered, switching the screen off before she could grab his phone.

"Are too!" Alya sang, squeezing him around the shoulders and poking his cheek repeatedly.

He _wasn't_ going to start this again. She always won.

"Alyaaa," Adrien whined.

"Adrieeen," Alya whined back."Tell me why you're comparing those photos."

Adrien's cheeks burned, but he knew resistance was futile: Alya was in reporter mode. He buried his face in his hands and mumbled into them.

"What was that?"

"I said looking at her sleeping makes _me_ sleepy," Adrien said, only slightly louder.

This wasn't what Alya was expecting, but she recovered quick enough.

"Hm, I see. You _have_ been having trouble sleeping recently."

"How do you know about that?!"

"Adrien, I've seen you nodding off between classes. I just didn't notice it was at the same time as Marinette." Alya gave him a sympathetic squeeze.

"Maybe it's just some kind of weird conditioning thing? Like yawning," Adrien suggested, yawning.

"Or maybe you need more sleep," Alya insisted. She pulled away, kissing Adrien's cheek as she retreated, and mussed his hair. "Don't worry, Sunshine. I gotchu."

"Wha – Alya, you don't -"

But Alya was already bouncing away with enviable energy, and Adrien decided to trust her. It wasn't like he could stop her anyway.

\--

Alya was true to her word.

"Adrien, I need to talk to Nino," she said during break two days later. "Could you swap places with me?"

Adrien turned to see Alya getting up, carefully lifting a sleeping Marinette off her arm as she did so. When Adrien narrowed his eyes at her, she blinked innocently at him.

"You coming, sleepyhead, or should I wake her up?"

Adrien hurried around the desk, ignoring Nino's inquiring glance, and sat in Alya's place. Alya positioned Adrien's arm so that his elbow and forearm were lying across Marinette's, and carefully lay her friend back down on him. She barely stirred.

Nino laughed as Adrien looked back at him helplessly.

"I want the record to show that I did not ask for this," he said.

"I want the record to show that Adrien is already yawning, and y _ou're welcome_ ," Alya retorted gleefully as Adrien failed to hold back his second yawn in a row.

It turned out Alya really did have something to discuss with Nino, although Adrien suspected she could have done it without changing seats. He left them to it and lay his head down on his other arm, facing Marinette's. He'd almost never been this close to her, apart from that one time they'd almost kissed for Nino's movie, and a few times when he'd saved her, mostly as Chat Noir. Even on the Startrain, he hadn't had time to notice the way her freckles congregated at the bridge of her nose, or the tiny scar just above her right eyebrow, or how her eyelashes, already noticeably long in the photo, cast delicate shadows over the apple of her cheek. His hand, which Alya had placed on Marinette's forearm, felt how cold it was, and he glanced up to see the thin, dark hairs raised in goosebumps. His thumb stroked them down reflexively as his hand tried to spread itself over as much of her cold skin as possible. Was that why she always fell asleep on people? Did she seek warmth the way he sought comfort?

His eyes drifted closed, but his other senses continued to notice things. The smell of strawberry shampoo, the same brand Ladybug used, and something buttery and sweet on her breath – whatever pastries she'd had for breakfast, he assumed. The sound of her breathing, light and shallow. The comforting weight of her head on his arm, which was just beginning to tingle. The way her hair lay like cool silk over his forearm.

Sleep descended on him like mist. The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake by Marinette herself. She was sitting farther from him than she had been, and her cheeks were flushed with either sleep or embarrassment, but she smiled as he yawned and stretched, and he smiled back at her, sheepishly.

From then on, Alya made it her mission to get Marinette to sleep on Adrien, either by transferring her to him once she was already asleep, or by insisting they sit next to each other when Marinette was tired. The latter method took a while to work, and Adrien ended up telling Marinette straight out that he didn't mind if she fell asleep on him.

"Are you sure? I don't know why Alya's doing this," she said in an embarrassed mutter.

"She's trying to get me to sleep more," Adrien admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with an embarrassed smile. "I have trouble sleeping sometimes, and I don't get many hugs at home, so when I do... well, it's kinda relaxing. You don't have to if you don't want to, though," he added quickly.

Marinette's eyes widened slightly, and Adrien was suddenly reminded of that day in the rain, when he'd given her his umbrella and she'd accepted it along with his friendship. His heart swelled with nostalgia for a second. Then she blinked, smiled, and plopped her head down on his shoulder, just like she always did with Alya.

Adrien's heart stumbled trying to accelerate and slow down at the same time.

After that, it was commonplace. Their other classmates caught on quickly, beckoning Adrien over with knowing smiles whenever Marinette yawned, or vice versa. Adrien didn't bother to fight the trend. He stopped keeping his mental tally of people and started one of places instead: at her desk, in the library, in the grass or on a bench at the park, in the metro, on the Liberty. The naps did him good, and he always woke up feeling like he'd slept several hours, when it had usually only been five minutes.

Once he woke to find himself in the middle of a sleeping pile of at least seven friends, with Luka playing a lullaby in the background. Being surrounded by warm, sleepy bodies, like he was one in a litter of kittens, felt wonderful; that and the gentle strumming soon put him straight back to sleep.

Unfortunately because of this, Adrien ended up getting home late, to his father's disapproval. He found himself grounded for a month, the first two weeks of which happened to be during the Easter holidays.

By the end of the first week, Adrien was getting withdrawal. He seriously considered visiting Marinette as Chat Noir, but that conversation sounded weird even in his head:

"Hi Marinette! No, don't worry, there's no akuma. I just came to ask you to fall asleep on me because I'm lonely and pathetic. I hope I don't remind you of that other weird friend you have who said he liked it when you fell asleep on him! By the way, since I'm transformed, I'll probably purr."

Yeah, _no_.

His phone pinged, blowing his muddy thoughts away like smoke. Sender: Alya.

_Hey Sunshine, I saw your poor sad baby face on Instagram and thought you could use a little care package to keep you going until you can see us again. You're welcome!_

_PS – we shared them with noone but each other okay don't be mad_

Puzzled and a little wary, Adrien opened the attached link, labelled #AdrinetteChallenge. It led to a cloud file containing photos. Photos of Marinette.

More precisely, they were photos of Marinette and himself, fast asleep in various places, with friends grinning and peace-signing around them. There were at least a dozen of them. Not all of them were flattering – Adrien was very grateful that Alya hadn't shared them, if only because his father would have flipped – but his heart quickened with anticipation nonetheless.

He sent a message back to Alya:

_You have no idea how much this cheered me up! Thank you!_

Then he scrolled through them again, downloading them onto his phone one at a time. There was the first time at Marinette's desk, just two heads of messy hair lying next to each other, with Alya standing behind them both, grinning proudly. Here they were sitting against the wall outside school, his head lolling forward as Marinette drooled on his shoulder – Nino and Alya were in this one. He counted, and realized his mental places tally was off: there were two in the metro, two on the Liberty, three in the library, and no less than five at the park.

In the last one Adrien was the central pillar of a cuddle pile, and Marinette was barely visible. She was slumped in Adrien's lap – he remembered moving his arm to cradle her head – with Rose and Juleka leaning on her, and Alya, Nino and Nathaniel on his other shoulder. This was the time that had gotten him grounded, he realized. The photo had probably been taken by Luka.

Adrien couldn't find it in him to regret it. He spent the next forty minutes gazing at that last photo, until Plagg grumbled at him to switch the light off. By the time he got into bed, he found that he didn't even need to look at it any more: it was already there in his mind, saturated with remembered warmth and weight and tickling hair and the smell of shampoo and a guitar-strung lullaby on the cool evening air. It was recent enough to still be fresh in his mind, and in another week, he'd have more fond, sleepy memories to replace it with.

And if Adrien forgot what it felt like to be loved in the meantime, well, he had an entire file full of photos to remind him now.


	22. Days 29 & 30: Memories and Ice Cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chat Blanc AU where they all retained their memories and the timeline lived on after the miracle cure.
> 
> TW for POV depictions of depression, anxiety, dissociation, implied panic attacks, PTSD, suicidal ideation and dreamed suicide, dreamed major character death, and a whole lotta angst.
> 
> There's a happy ending, though, I promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ending this month with my longest one-shot yet, at 6200+ words! Now I'm gonna sleep until confinement ends xD

_Chat Blanc sits on top of Montparnasse Tower, one of the last roofs still above water, and hums._

“ _Un p'tit chat sur un toit...”_

_He's in what might be called a good mood today, if “good” means he's not cataclysming what remains of Paris, or sobbing uncontrollably into the sea. A detatched numbness that is almost peaceful. Waiting._

_He felt something like it back when he was just Adrien sometimes. Like everything he feels, it's a thousand times stronger in Chat Blanc, but Adrien felt it, too – getting his make-up done, waiting around between photoshoots, up in his room before he had Plagg or went to public school. At the time it drove him half-mad. It was that numbness, that sense that he was missing out on life, that pushed him to sign up for public school. Now, there's no life to miss out on, and the numbness is a relief._

_Chat Blanc envies Adrien._

_Adrien didn't know that his mother was still alive in a glass coffin in the basement – until Chat Blanc killed her a second time, that is. Adrien didn't know his father was Hawkmoth, or what he was capable of. Adrien didn't know any of the bad things. All Adrien knew was that Marinette was Ladybug and both of her loved him._

_He blinks, and there she is. He can't tell if he's hallucinating or not. It wouldn't be the first time. He greets her anyway, but she runs away. Of course. How could she love him any more, after what he's done? What he's about to do._

_His arm is outstretched, a blinding spot of white light pulsing at the end of it. There is terror in her eyes. She hates him now. Might as well end it all here._

_The white spot grows and grows and grows, encompassing everything, until finally even the numbness is gone._

\--

“Adrien. Adrien!”

Adrien gasped, gulping the air like a drowning man, flailing until gravity stopped shifting and he felt her hand on his face. Her bare hand. She must have detransformed during the night.

“Mar-” he coughed, and her other hand patted the space between his shoulderblades. He turned, arms reaching, hands grasping until they wrapped around her body. He threw himself at her, burying his face in her neck.

There was a soft thud against the headboard.

“Ow,” she muttered.

“Sorry,” he whispered, barely squeezing the apology out through his knotted throat. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Marinette...”

Once he started, it was hard to stop.

“Shh, it's okay,” she soothed, kissing his forehead and wiping the tears off his cheek. “Can we lie down again?”

He loosened his grip on her just enough to shuffle down on the bed until they were lying face to face. Then he pulled her into him again.

“Nightmare?” she asked, because sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes he just woke up in tears for no reason at all.

He nodded, his chin bumping her collarbone. He kissed it in apology.

“Wanna talk about it?”

He shook his head, bumping her jaw this time. The apology kiss made her gasp a little.

“I love you,” he murmured into her neck.

“I love you, too,” she said. “So much, Adrien. I love you _so much_.”

The plea in her voice broke what was left of his heart.

\--

“Ugh, it stinks in here. Jean-Claude, open the windows.”

Adrien felt like he'd been wrapped in a warm, soft mist, only to find himself walking off a cliff. All mornings felt like that these days. Though usually the wake-up was less brutal.

“Adrikiiins, wake up! I brought you breakfast. It's your favourite,” Chloe sang, her voice obnoxiously loud. The light streaming through the windows blinded him, and he buried his face under the covers. The groan that rose from the bed, however, was not his.

“Oh, is she here?” Chloe's voice held only the regular amount of disdain. Since she'd found out Marinette was Ladybug, her hatred for the former seemed to have cancelled out her love for the latter, leaving her at a position that was vaguely neutral. “Well whatever, but she'll have to get her own breakfast. I didn't order for three.”

The covers were yanked ruthlessly down, and Adrien cringed against the cold morning light.

“Adrien, come on,” Chloe said. “You've got that thing today, that band thing, whatever. You're going out in public, so you need a shower and a haircut. And a manicure,” she added, swatting his hand away when he tried to pull the covers back up. “Marinette, help me out here.”

Adrien felt Marinette's arms tighten around his waist as she buried her face in his back. Chloe's silhouette, outlined against the blinding white window, threw up its arms in exasperation and walked away. He heard her pottering about in his room, muttering and barking the occasional order to the butler.

“Your cousin told me he's coming to see you, by the way,” she called from somewhere near the wardrobe.

Adrien's entire body tensed. He felt Marinette's grip on him tighten for a second before she ripped her warmth away from him and sat up.

“When is he coming?” she asked.

“In about an hour.”

He felt her relax, just a little, but she didn't lie down again.

“Are those from our bakery?”

“Yes, but like I said, you'll have to go home and get your own.”

Marinette snorted softly, and her hand came to rest on Adrien's shoulder. She shook him gently. He groaned.

–

Marinette – Ladybug – and Chloe were gone, and Adrien was just stepping out of the shower when he saw Felix standing near the window. The hairdresser had arrived and set up in the middle of the floor. She was standing next to the chair, looking uncomfortable, and she brightened considerably when Adrien entered the room.

“Still keeping us here?” Felix asked without preamble.

“Nobody's keeping you here but yourselves,” Adrien replied, sitting in the chair. He was tired of this discussion.

“Mother's worried about you.”

Felix moved to sit on the edge of Adrien's bed, which had been immaculately made by the turn down staff. He picked at the duvet cover. When Adrien said nothing, Felix cocked his head and studied him for a long time.

“You're thinking about it, aren't you?”

Adrien pressed his lips into a thin line.

Felix let out a short sigh that might have been a laugh, had he been smiling. “To be honest, I don't really care whether you come to live with us or not. Hawkmoth's in jail, so I'm not worried about you dying again.” He interlaced his hands on his knees. “I'd be off at boarding school most of the time anyway, and I doubt you have the grades to get in after missing so much school.”

Adrien closed his eyes as the hairdresser worked on his fringe, which was looking more Chat Noir than Adrien at the moment.

“I think if you were still _in_ school, Mother would drop the issue,” Felix remarked.

Adrien forced patience into his voice. “I can't go to school when the press are all over me as soon as I walk out the door.”

“So sign up for homeschool again,” said Felix. “Or hire your old bodyguard. I found his paperwork in your father's study, with his contact information on it. He's testifying against your father, isn't he? He can't be that bad.”

“I'm a minor,” Adrien pointed out. “I can't hire people.”

“Request empancipation. Or find a family to adopt you. Chloe's father probably would, if she asked.”

Adrien grimaced. As generous as Chloe and her father had been to him, he couldn't see himself living here forever. He'd almost rather go to London.

“It's up to you,” Felix said. “But you can't just do nothing any more. If you're not coming with us, that's your choice. But you have to _make_ a choice.”

Something landed in Adrien's lap, making him jump. The hairdresser curse under her breath.

“Your friends left you a video message. It's cute,” Felix said.

The door clicked shut behind him.

–

It took Chloe holding his arm to get him down the stairs and through the lobby. She didn't cling to him the way she used to; rather, she pulled him along gently but firmly, like a mother coaxing a scared child into the dentist's office.

It took Chloe _and_ Marinette, one on either side of him, to get him from the hotel to the dock where the Liberty was moored. Along the way, Marinette informed him that Alya had taken it upon herself to create a double of him somewhere conspicuous halfway across the city, which explained why there were no paparazzi jumping out at him today. The journey wasn't as long as he'd anticipated, either, although it was still far too long for his liking.

“Anarka got as close as possible to the hotel,” Marinette told him. “I'm not sure she's parked legally at the moment, but she doesn't seem to care.”

“Speaking of which, this is where I get off,” Chloe said, as though she'd ever been on public transport in her life. “See you later, Adrikins. Have fun on your friend's boat thingy.”

A pat on the shoulder and she was gone, leaving a right-leaning thrill of panic in her wake. At his left, Marinette squeezed his hand.

“Listen,” she said. “It's starting.”

The growl of an electric guitar on maximum reverb floated through the air. Adrien let Marinette guide him onto the boat, numbness settling over him like a thin grey blanket.

 _Better that than a panic attack_ , he thought, eyeing the people on board before they had a chance to see him. He never thought he'd _regret_ having so many friends.

“Adrien!” Nino's face lit up as he approached, though his movements were more hesitant than usual. Adrien smiled automatically and let muscle memory do their handshake for him before being engulfed in a hug.

“Hey, Nino,” he said into Nino's shoulder.

“It's good to see you, bro,” Nino said, before handing him over to Alya.

“You cut your hair!” Alya said, mussing it. Adrien glanced up towards his fringe.

“It's shorter than I wanted,” he said.

“It looks good on you. Come, sit.”

She threaded a path through the crowd of friends to a spot on the floor near an empty guitar case. The friends smiled at him, and he smiled back. Some waved. Kim grinned and looked ready to jump on him, but Alix punched him and growled.

Adrien turned away. He hated that they were walking on eggshells around him. He hated that he needed it.

He settled on the floor, and Marinette closed the guitar case and sat on it behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Alya and Nino sat on either side, like guards. Ivan spotted him from the stage, where they were doing a soundcheck. He pointed a drumstick at the keyboard questioningly, but Adrien shook his head. He'd had enough of being the center of attention.

Rose cleared her throat into the microphone. “Hey everybody! We're Kitty Section, as you all know.” A giggle. “For the first half, we'll mostly be doing Jagged Stone covers, and after that we have some new songs of our own to show you!” She turned to her bandmates and shouted, “Are we ready? _One, two, three, four!_ ”

Something about the vicious joy Rose took in singing seeped through the grey numbness in Adrien's head, bringing other sensations with it: the bass vibrating the planks underneath him in a way that tickled his spine, the smell of the river and Marinette's baking, the warmth of her arms in contrast to the cool, wet breeze. He could feel her moving, bobbing her head to the music, and relaxed a little. This wasn't so bad.

–

By the time the first half was over, Adrien was hidden behind the grey veil again. Being present was exhausting in such a loud and crowded space, even out in the open. The therapist Chloe had insisted he talk to had explained that dissociation was a common coping mechanism, and he shouldn't feel bad about it, so he tried not to.

It meant, however, that it took him a while to notice that the boat was moving. A cold needle of panic pierced the veil.

“Marinette, where are we going?” he murmured when they got up. The rest of the crowd was milling around a bench with food on it, leaving them alone with the band on the opposite end of the boat.

“To the lover's bridge,” Marinette said. “André the ice cream maker is there. We thought we'd sit on the quay and eat some, if there aren't too many people.” She caught the look on his face and added, “We don't have to if you don't want to.”

Fear and guilt tore at each other in his gut. Adrien felt his heart accelerate and took a deep breath, forcing it out slowly. Marinette hugged him.

“I don't need ice cream to know we love each other,” she said. “We'll get some another day. We have our whole lives.”

Adrien squeezed her tight and buried his nose in her hair. _Our whole lives_ , she said, always willing to sacrifice her own happiness to be with someone broken like him. He didn't deserve her. But he couldn't bring himself to push her away, either. She'd done that to him once, the day he'd transformed in front of her for the first time. He wouldn't subject her to the same pain. The choice, at least, should be hers. Even if waiting for her to make that choice was torture.

He pulled away and nodded, searching for a change of subject. His mouth felt dry and bitter.

“Think we can get some drinks?” he asked, sounding strangely normal.

Marinette nodded, brightening a little, and pulled him towards the crowd. Alya spotted her and passed her a carton of apple juice with a smile. Marinette said something to her, and a cup of iced tea followed. The cups were those cardboard ones with the plastic lids, and seemed to come from a coffee shop of some sort. A clever idea, he thought, to keep all the drinks covered on a boat.

“Hey girl, I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you yet,” Alya was saying, pulling Marinette and Adrien away from the crowd. “Did you sleep much last night?”

Adrien squeezed Marinette's hand and let go of it. She glanced at him with worry in her eyes, and he smiled at her and gestured vaguely towards Alya. Marinette smiled back, all the sweetness and love in the world in her eyes, and Adrien turned to sit on a crate. There wasn't much space on the deck, and he was reluctant to stray far, but at least he wasn't being intrusive.

Adrien had been sipping his tea for five minutes when he heard a sentence that froze the liquid in his belly.

“Are you still having nightmares?”

He glanced around in search of the asker and found Alya, but she wasn't looking at him. She was still talking to Marinette.

Marinette shot a nervous glance in Adrien's direction, and he sipped his tea, pretending not to hear.

“I don't have them when I'm with him,” she murmured. “So I guess... better?”

“I still say you need therapy, girl,” Alya said.

“And I still say it's too expensive,” Marinette muttered. “Please, Alya, you sound like my parents.”

“They're right.”

“They're already saving up for my college fund, and sales have gone down since people are leaving and tourism hasn't picked up again yet. We can't afford it.”

“You should let them decide that,” Alya insisted, and at this point Adrien decided he'd had enough of evesdropping and stood up.

“Bathroom,” he said to Marinette's anxious look, and disappeared below the deck, unshed tears knotting his throat and building hot pressure behind his eyes.

He'd thought nobody would be down here. The band were still upstairs with their audience, getting their own refreshments, and Anarka had been steering the boat and cackling at Officer Roger the last time he'd checked. So when he entered the room he was most familiar with, the one his friends shared, he didn't expect Luka to be there, standing in the middle of it with a guitar in his hand.

Adrien stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Luka. Luka stared back, looking slightly startled. Luka always looked slightly everything, Adrien thought, uselessly. He seemed to have been crossing the room to sit on the bed when Adrien had burst in on him.

 _Oh god I shouldn't be here_ , Adrien realized, but the unshed tears were still clawing their way up his throat, and his limbs refused to move.

“You okay, Adrien?” Luka asked.

_Say something say something say something._

“N-no,” said Adrien. _Not that, stupid!_

It was too late. His vision blurred, and a sob escaped him. Adrien buried his face in his hands, completely mortified. A large hand landed gently on his shoulder.

“I'm not okay,” Adrien sobbed. “I'm so tired of all these responsibilities now my f-father's – and having to pretend I even know what I'm doing or what I want – and there are so many things I need to talk about but c-can't – and M-Marinette's not okay either but she's pretending she is for me, and I'm pretending I'm getting better for her, but I just know she can see right through me, and I'm so tired of having to put up a front all the time! Even before all this happened, I never got to be who I truly am, and now I can't even be _that_ person any more.”

A loud wood-and-strings bang filled the room, but Adrien was too overwhelmed to pay attention. Emotions crashed through him like waves, drowning him. He was vaguely aware of Luka's arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug.

“Hey, it's alright Adrien. You can tell me anything – or nothing, if you prefer. You can be yourself with me, you know.”

The words sounded trite and awkward, but they were exactly what Adrien needed to hear. Nobody had yet told him he could tell them nothing and still be his shitty, broken self. It had always felt like he needed a justification to not be okay.

Adrien wrapped his arms around Luka and bawled. Luka's words had dissolved the embarrassment like honey in hot water, and now he was stroking Adrien's cropped hair and murmuring reassurances.

 _Luka's good at this_ , a still-coherent part of his mind thought from a safe distance. _It feels like he's had practice_. It reassured Adrien a little to know that he wasn't the first person Luka had ever seen break down like this.

When the storm had quieted somewhat, Luka retreated so he could look down at Adrien, smiling. “You know everyone on this boat loves you, right?”

Adrien nodded miserably.

“And you know that means we still want you in our lives, even if you're not okay.”

Adrien glanced up at Luka, who was gazing at him with a gentle conviction that Adrien was beginning to associate with his therapist. His throat tightened again, and he buried his face in his hands.

Luka chuckled. Adrien wondered if he should consider that insensitive, but it felt good to not be taken entirely seriously for once. He found himself smiling through his tears.

“Do you still want Marinette in your life, even if she's not okay?”

The question hit Adrien in the head like a brick. He stared up at Luka, who was looking back at him without judgement. Like “no” was a valid response he would even consider.

“Of course I do!”

Luka grinned then, and mussed Adrien's hair. The message behind Luka's question dawned on him, and the huge, tangled knot of fear and guilt that had festered in his gut for the past month suddenly eased. Adrien let out a long, shaky breath, and smiled his first genuinely happy smile since the miracle cure had brought everyone back to life.

“You should trust yourself to get better in your own time,” Luka said, and somehow, suddenly, Adrien did.

Just in time, too. A tiny sob came from behind him, and Adrien turned to see Marinette standing in the doorway.

_Oh, crap._

She crashed into him, sobbing, and clung to him the way he'd clung to her every day since his father's arrest. Adrien bumped into Luka, who guided them to sit the bed and jerked a thumb questioningly towards the door. Adrien nodded with a reassuring smile – a real one this time – and Luka smiled back as he shut the door behind him.

“I'm sorry, Adrien,” Marinette was mumbling into his shirt. “I didn't mean to hide stuff from you but I didn't want you to worry and I didn't want you to think you had to hide anything from _me_ and -”

“Shhhh, it's okay, I know,” Adrien said, in a fair imitation of Luka. He hugged her close and kissed her hair until she calmed down a little. It seemed to take her much less time than it had taken him, but that could be entirely subjective.

“You know,” he said when her sobs had turned to sniffles, “it actually feels really good to be able to comfort you. Like I'm being useful.”

Marinette snorted tearfully. “You don't need to be useful for me to love you.”

“I know,” said Adrien. “But I want to be.”

Marinette didn't reply to that. He suspected she knew exactly what he meant. If anyone liked to be useful, it was Marinette.

“Um,” she said after a while. “I, um, I hope you don't mind, but I brought someone along to see you...”

Adrien's heartbeat quickened, though he had no idea whether it was with panic or anticipation. He glanced at her hands, and sure enough, a thin rose gold band decorated her left middle finger. How hadn't he noticed it before? He'd been holding hands with her all afternoon.

Plagg phased out of her handbag before he could say anything. Adrien hadn't seen him since the day after his father's arrest, when he'd given the miraculous to Ladybug despite Plagg's protests. Adrien swallowed. Was Plagg mad at him? Knowing Plagg, Adrien was in for a nasty scratch, or at least a thorough yelling at. And that was before Adrien had to tell him he still couldn't be Chat Noir again.

To his surprise, though, Plagg looked sad. His ears and tail were drooping, and his huge green eyes were downcast. He floated listlessly upwards, keeping his distance.

“I just wanted to see how you were,” Plagg said. His voice sounded smaller than Adrien had ever heard it.

“I'm f-” Adrien started to say, but Luka's words were fresh in his mind. He took a deep breath and started again. “I'm struggling,” he said, and his voice was surprisingly steady. “It's really hard. I miss you, but I haven't changed my mind. I'm sorry, Plagg.”

Adrien held up a hand for Plagg to land on, and the kwami did so hesitantly. When Adrien brought him close to his cheek though, all hesitance dissolved and Plagg headbutted his cheekbone so hard it hurt.

“Ow,” Adrien said, but Plagg was nuzzling him and didn't answer. His purr was so loud it filled the cabin. Adrien cupped his hand and stroked the softly vibrating fur with his thumb, trying not to cry again.

“Love you, kid,” Plagg rumbled.

“Love you too,” Adrien whispered in reply.

“So take me back,” Plagg said. He flew down to the hollow between Adrien's neck and shoulder and dug his claws into his shirt.

“How can you ask me that after what I did?” Adrien asked, his voice wobbling a little.

“I'm not asking you to transform. I'm saying you should let me live with you,” Plagg said. His claws dug into Adrien's skin, almost piercing it. “A whole human lifetime of no work? Sign me up,” he added, sounding more like his old self and startling a laugh out of both humans.

“Ladybug needs a Chat Noir to balance her out,” Adrien reminded him. “Marinette will choose someone else eventually.”

“I don't know where you keep getting this idea, Adrien, but that is not happening,” Marinette scolded his shirt. “If you want to give up being Chat Noir I can respect that, and I'll continue being Ladybug for a while because Paris needs reassurance right now. But the butterfly miraculous is still gone, and that future Hawkmoth is bound to turn up sometime. I can't work without you, so I'll just have to choose another Ladybug.”

Adrien stilled. He hadn't thought of it like that. He'd been so convinced he was useless and that Marinette would figure that out at some point and abandon him that it had never occurred to him.

“I don't want you to stop being Ladybug,” he said quietly, squeezing her.

“I don't want you to stop being Chat Noir,” she retorted, more directly than she'd spoken to him in weeks.

“I'm scared of being Chat Noir.”

Plagg removed his claws from Adrien's skin and levitated in front of his face. The sadness was almost gone, replaced by a more familiar irritation.

“You're one of the best black cats I ever had, kid,” Plagg said. “You were picked for it because you're a happy little ray of sunshine who wouldn't hurt a fly. What you did while you were akumatized it _entirely_ on your father, and even then, you _really tried to spare Ladybug!_ ”

Adrien's eyes widened, and he sat up straighter, jostling Marinette.

“Plagg, do you remember what happened while I was akumatized?”

“ _Yes!_ ” Plagg shouted. “I remember everything! I remember you trying to detransform a thousand times, visiting all your friends even though they were dead, talking to them, singing that godawful song over and over, and I _especially_ remember that when Bunnix brought Ladybug here from the past to de-akumatize you, you tried to reason with her first! You know how she managed to find the akuma? _YOU SHOWED IT TO HER!_ ”

Plagg stopped to catch his breath. Adrien sat stunned, absorbing this new information and slotting it into the broken jigsaw puzzle of memories and nightmares to see what picture it made. It wasn't nearly as horrifying as he'd thought it would be.

Marinette's voice floated through the shock. “So that's why it took so long,” she murmured. “You were trying to hold back.”

Adrien's heart wrung itself in guilt at the thought of hurting her. He wasn't about to be rid of that so easily, but it was more bearable now he knew his intentions had been good at least.

Plagg wasn't finished, though. “You were a _great_ Chat Noir before, but you know what? You'd be an even better one now! Because nobody has been through what you've been through and lived to tell the tale. You _know_ just how destructive we can be in the wrong hands. It's just your bad luck – which is probably my fault – that the wrong hands were those of your _total nutcase_ of a father, and neither of us – not even _me_ – managed to find out about _him_ before he found out about you. And you have the excuse of it being your dad, Adrien! How could you have suspected him? You're a child! You were dependent on him! I _knew_ something was up with that guy, and I could have gone snooping to find out more, but did I? No! I'm several million years old, Adrien, _I'm the one who fucked up here!_ ”

It looked like Plagg had yet more to say, but Adrien grabbed him out of the air and pulled up to his chest. He hadn't thought he had tears left after today, but apparently he was wrong. Marinette wrapped her arms around his chest and giggled wetly as Plagg thrashed and made muffled yowling noises into Adrien's shirt.

“If I take the miraculous back, do I have to go back to being Chat Noir right away?” he asked.

Marinette gasped and tensed against him.

“Of course not,” he said, her voice straining to sound normal.

Plagg had stilled against him, too. Adrien opened his hand so he could peep out. His slit pupils were almost entirely dilated.

“Are you being serious?” Plagg whispered.

“About you living with me? Yeah,” said Adrien, smiling.

“ _ADRIEN -!!_ ” Plagg phased through Adrien's hand and flew several rings around his head, making it spin, before headbutting his cheek again repeatedly. Marinette laughed, and Adrien found himself laughing, too. Adrien closed his eyes against his kwamis assaults, and felt something hard and warm press into his palm. He opened his eyes to find the black cat miraculous sitting there, radiating magic. He hadn't felt magic for weeks. He'd forgotten the thrill of it, the electric energy, like a high frequency hum in his bones. Heart stumbling over itself, Adrien slipped the ring back to its familiar place on his finger. It turned silver and tightened, as though afraid he might take it off again.

–

They emerged, red-eyed and exhausted, towards the end of the second half. Nino's brow puckered in concern, but Adrien grinned at him, and Nino grinned back in relief. Alya raised her eyebrows at Marinette, who mouthed “tell you later.”

Kim clapped them both on the shoulders, shouting something, and pushed them to the front of the crowd. Adrien caught Alix's alarmed look and had to laugh. It felt like he was always either crying or laughing today.

He turned just in time for Rose to scream something at him about true love conquering the world, beaming and bouncing and generally being her usual giddy self. Adrien admired her strength. Rose had always bounced back from anything life threw at her. Being dead for several months was no exception, apparently.

The song ended, and Rose jumped down from the stage with a squeal of delight and threw her arms around Adrien.

“I'm so glad you're here, Adrien!” she sang, and suddenly it was as though she'd flipped a switch.

“Yeah, me too,” said Juleka, smiling.

“Me three!” Ivan boomed.

“It hasn't been the same without you!”

“Yeah man, I had nobody to compete against except shorty here – ow!”

“It was cool of Rena Rouge to help us kidnap you. Think she'll do it again?”

Adrien caught Alya's eye through the crowd of people suddenly patting his back and shoulders and mussing his hair, and they shared a grin.

“Maybe if we ask nicely,” Alya said.

“Much as I hate to interrupt Adrien Appreciation Hours,” Max said, sounding somehow nerdier than usual, “I believe we are approaching the lover's bridge.”

“Ohhh! Ice cream!”

And just like that, the crowd dispersed. Or rather, moved collectively towards the bow, since there wasn't enough room for them to really disperse.

Anarka walked over, and Adrien wondered who was steering the boat.

“Coast's clear,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder, quite a bit harder than the others had. “Stay nearby just in case, though, laddie. I can outsail as many hounds as you like, but it'll only work if you're on the boat. I'd rather not get the cannons out with Roger roding.”

Adrien had no idea if she was joking about the cannons.

“Thanks, Anarka.”

“No problem,” she said, smiling down at him. “You know you're welcome here whenever you want. I could always use another hand on deck.”

As she returned to the hatch to park the boat, which was listing gently sideways, Nino wandered over and handed him a croissant. He bit into it, almost surprised to find himself enjoying the taste again. He'd forgotten what it felt like to enjoy things.

“I know you said you're fine, but I want to reiterate that my mother will absolutely adopt you if you ask,” he said. “Seriously, bro. You could become my _actual bro_.”

Adrien smiled lopsidedly. “I dunno, Nino, Alya might kill me. Your place is the only place you guys can go without being ambushed by twins.”

“So come live with us,” Alya said through a mouthful of macaron. “You can babysit. My parents will _love_ you.”

“Guys, leave Adrien alone,” Marinette said, squeezing his hand. “He's fine with Chloe for now. He still has time to decide where he wants to go.”

Some of the newfound hope in Adrien's heart clouded with doubt.

Nino saw his smile fade. “Sorry, dude. I didn't mean to pressure you or anything.”

Adrien saw worry in all of their faces, and felt a familiar guilt needle its way into his gut. But this time, there were shields. Adrien remembered Luka's words, and Marinette crying in his arms, and how good it had felt to comfort her. They just wanted to help him, so who was he to deny them?

He ran his thumb over the ring on his hand.

“Honestly, I don't know where to go. I don't want to stay with Chloe forever. I need a real family, but my aunt Amelie and Felix... I feel like if I leave with them, she won't let me come back. And I don't want to leave you guys.” He squeezed Marinette's hand, and she wrapped her arms around his chest.

“Well, you have lots of options,” she said. “Just pick the one you think would help you the most. You can think about paying it back later,” she added, seeing the look on his face.

Adrien bowed his head and kissed her. It struck him that he hadn't kissed her on the lips in ages. It felt good, like getting into bed after a long, exhausting day and finding the love of your life already there.

Adrien pulled away and rested his forehead on hers, eyes closed. He thought of his friends, and their parents. During the first days, when he hadn't wanted to leave Marinette for a second, he'd stayed with her. Her parents had been wonderful, especially after she'd told them the whole truth. Even when he'd left, unable to bear so much love for the self he hated, they'd let Marinette go to him every night. After what he'd done to her, he'd have expected them to never want to see him again. But Tom remembered what it was like to be akumatized, and reminded him that Chat Noir had been the one to save them then.

Adrien opened his eyes and met Marinette's. Home, he realized, was right there.

“Can I call your parents?”

Marinette's eyes grew to the size of saucers before melting into a look of pure joy. It reminded him of the day he'd first told her he loved her.

She handed him her phone, not that he needed it. Sabine still texted him every day to ask how he was doing.

Tom answered after the first ring.

“Tom-and-Sabine-boulangerie-pâtisserie-howmayIhelpyou?”

“Tom?”

A sharp intake of breath.

“Adrien? You okay, son?”

 _Son_. If that wasn't the answer right there.

“C-can I come live with you guys?” Adrien asked, suddenly nervous.

A pause. Adrien bit his lip.

“WHA- OF COURSE YOU CAN! _Sabine!_ ” Tom called, his voice further from the phone. “ _Adrien's coming to live with us!_ ”

An excited whoop sounded in the background, and Tom was laughing.

Sabine's voice came through the phone.

“What time are you getting home? I'll make your favourite!”

It occurred to Adrien that Sabine knew his favourite foods, and his grin stretched wider.

“I dunno, I'll have to ask Marinette,” he said, and Marinette took the phone back to talk excitedly with her parents.

Nino and Alya hugged him suddenly, jumping up and down and shouting in his ears, like he'd just won a fencing match. Adrien blinked and grinned and hugged them back.

They almost fell over when the boat bumped gently against the quay.

“Ice cream time!” Rose's voice sang out, to the wild approval of her audience.

Alya and Nino dropped off him and ran for the quay, parkouring off the boat. Nino lost his footing and nearly fell into the Seine, caught just in time by Luka, who seemed accustomed to this kind of thing.

“Do you want to get ice cream?” Marinette asked, putting her phone away. Her face was as flushed as the sunset before them, and she was smiling. “We don't have to,” she added, interlacing their fingers. “Or if you want, I could go and get us both some.”

Adrien shook his head, smiling down at the girl who wouldn't stop saving him, no matter what he did. He was done hiding. He knew he wouldn't always be okay. The bad memories were in him now, and would probably return to haunt him again. But then, they were in her, too. The least he could do was be there with her.

“Let's go together,” he said.


End file.
